Brain vs Gut

Speakers

Organizers

John G. Kral, MD, PhD

SUNY Downstate Medical Center

With an MA in Behavioral Neuroscience (Psychology) Dr. Kral attended medical school at the University of Göteborg, Sweden where he completed residencies in Surgery and Medicine and PhD studies on adipose tissue and lipid and carbohydrate metabolism. He initiated the program for obesity surgery in Göteborg and, in 1981 the Division of Surgical Metabolism at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center, Columbia U., New York. Apart from studies of body composition, adipose tissue receptors and lipid and carbohydrate metabolism his career-long interests have included ingestive behavior and genetic and epigenetic determinants of the chronic inflammatory insulin resistant over-nutrition syndrome termed “obesity”. In 1983 he was a co-founder of the American Society for Bariatric Surgery and co-organized the 1991 NIH Consensus Development Conference: Gastrointestinal Surgery for Severe Obesity. Dr Kral studied the effects of intestinal diversion on hyperinsulinemia, gastric emptying, intestinal adaptation, microflora and mucosal immunity and performed the first clinical studies of vagotomy for the treatment of obesity. His most recent publications describe early-life stress as a precursor of insulin resistance in monkeys and the importance of the intrauterine environment for the development of adolescent obesity and insulin resistance in humans.

Andrew G. Swick, PhD

Nutrition Research Institute, University of North Carolina

Dr Andrew G. Swick has over 20 years of experience in obesity and metabolic diseases research with expertise in relevant cell and animal models and a keen understanding of translational research. He joined the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Department of Nutrition and the Nutrition Research Institute in August of 2010 where he is currently an associate professor and Director of Obesity and Eating Disorders Research. Dr Swick’s two main areas of research are 1) gut metabolism as it relates to obesity and metabolic diseases and 2) body weight and energy expenditure in humans with an emphasis on variability in energy metabolism in response to diet, exercise, nutriceuticals and pharmaceuticals etc. Dr Swick earned a BS in Animal Science from the University of Florida in 1981 followed by an MS in Nutrition from the University of Nebraska in 1982. While in Lincoln, he worked on the effects of dietary fiber and fat on serum lipid levels. He then moved on to the University of Wisconsin where he conducted research on diet-induced-thermogenesis and brown adipose tissue metabolism and function. After earning his PhD in 1987, Andy pursued postdoctoral research at the Lineberger Cancer Research Institute at the University of North Carolina where he studied transcriptional regulation of the dihydrofolate reductase gene and the effects of chemotherapeutic agents on transcription and gene amplification. In 1990, Andy joined Dan Lane's lab in the Department of Biological Chemistry at Johns Hopkins University Medical Center where he conducted research on the regulation of adipocyte gene expression and differentiation. In 1992, Dr Swick joined Pfizer Global Research and Development as a Senior Research Scientist in Cardiovascular and Metabolic Diseases working on diabetes and obesity and rose to become Senior Director of Cardiovascular, Metabolic and Endocrine Diseases (CVMED). His efforts were concentrated on target validation, biomarker discovery, animal models and translational research focusing on the molecular mechanisms that regulate body weight and obesity-associated comorbidities with an eye on the translation of preclinical results to the clinical situation. Dr Swick was a key member of the CVMED Leadership Team, Obesity Disease Area Strategy Team, CVMED Translational Research Team and Obesity Development Team. While at Pfizer Andy was responsible for the delivery of more than a dozen compounds to clinical development, including biologicals and small molecules spanning multiple mechanisms across obesity and diabetes, covering Phases 1, 2 and 3. In 2009, Dr Swick formed Illuminate BioPharma Consulting LLC to provide expert advice to Biotechnology, Pharmaceutical and Venture Capital companies and non-profit organizations on Drug Discovery Research and Development. Andy is an elected member of several professional organizations and currently serves on the New York Academy of Sciences Diabetes and Obesity Steering Committee.

Jennifer S. Henry, PhD

The New York Academy of Sciences

Moderator

Gary J. Schwartz, PhD

Albert Einstein College of Medicine

Gary J. Schwartz, PhD, is a Professor of Medicine and Neuroscience at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University.  His basic research focuses on the neurobiology of feeding behavior, energy balance, and glucose homeostasis in obesity and diabetes.  He has published extensively on the role of gut-brain communication in the control of food intake and  metabolism, and is an Associate Editor of the American Journal of Physiology, Endocrinology & Metabolism section.  He is a senior member and Core leader for the Albert Einstein Diabetes Research and Training Center and the New York Obesity Research Center, and is the Director of the Skirball Institute for Nutrient Sensing.

Speakers

Blandine Laferrère, MD

Columbia University—St. Luke's Roosevelt Hospital Center

Blandine Laferrère, MD, is Associate Professor of Medicine at St Luke's Roosevelt Hospital, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, Attending Physician is the Division of Endocrinology and Diabetes, and Member of the New York Obesity Nutrition Research Center (NYONRC) and the Diabetes Endocrinology Research Center. Dr Laferrère trained as a Endocrinologist Diabetologist both in France and in the United States. She is a full time Attending physician in the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism at St Luke's Roosevelt Hospital where she is co-Director of the fellowship program. The focus of her research at the NYONRC is the relation between weight changes and diabetes risk. Her laboratory has contributed to the understanding of the mechanisms of diabetes remission after bariatric surgery by showing a role of the incretins. The focus of her current research is to understand the mechanisms of the differential metabolic response between diet and surgical weight loss, the mechanisms of incretin release after GBP and the long-term effect of surgical weight loss on beta-cell function.

Allen S. Levine, PhD

University of Minnesota

Allen Levine is Dean of the College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences at the University of Minnesota. Prior to this position, he was Head of the Department of Food Science and Nutrition. He was the Associate Director of Research and a Senior Career Scientist at the Minneapolis VA Medical Center. He is also Director of the Minnesota Obesity Center, a National Institutes of Health funded collaborative research group of over 55 federally funded investigators from the University, the Mayo Clinic, the Minneapolis VA Medical Center, Health Partners, and Hennepin County Medical Center. His research focus for the past 25 years has been on neural regulation of food intake, particularly related to the opioid peptides and Neuropeptide Y. He has published over 285 scientific papers and over 90 review articles, editorials and book reviews. Dr. Levine has served on a variety of Editorial Boards and National Organizations; including American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Journal of Nutrition, NAASO (ethics committee chair), SSIB (currently President; treasurer), ASNS, APA, and ILSI. He has been on the advisory groups of various food and pharmaceutical corporations including the Dannon Institute, Best Foods, and the International Life Sciences Institute. He also has experience with non-profit corporations having been on the Boards and served as President or Executive Director of five non-profit organizations. Dr. Levine is a Professor in the Departments of Food Science and Nutrition, Psychiatry, Neuroscience, Medicine, and is a member of the nutrition, food science, and the neuroscience graduate faculties at the University of Minnesota.

Timothy H. Moran, PhD

Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

Dr. Moran received his PhD in Biopsychology at Johns Hopkins University in 1982.  Following a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins focusing on developmental neurochemistry and neurochemical responses to brain injury, he joined the faculty in the Department of Psychiatry in 1984. He was promoted to Professor in 1992 and was named the Paul R. McHugh Professor of Motivated Behavior in 2002. He currently serves as Vice Chair and Director of Research for the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Moran has been an associate editor for the American Journal of Physiology: Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology and for Brain Research.  He is on the Editorial Boards of multiple journals.  He has served on the board of directors, as president and as program chair for the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior.  He has also served as the chair of the integrated physiology track of the program committee of the Obesity Society. He is currently on the Scientific Advisory Committee for the New York Obesity Center, The Klarman Family Foundation for Eating Disorders Research, the Ingestive Behavior Research Center at Purdue and the Institure for Mental Health Research at the University of Ottawa. He has served on and chaired multiple NIH Study Sections. Dr. Moran's research program is aimed at identifying the roles of various neural signaling pathways in the controls of food intake and body weight. Work has focused on brain/gut peptides as feedback controls of meal size and how these interact with hypothalamic peptide systems involved in overall energy balance. Additional projects examine how gestational and early developmental factors can bias metabolic programming to contribute to obesity. This work has resulted in over 280 original data articles, reviews and book chapters.

Walter J. Pories, MD

East Carolina University

Walter J. Pories, MD, FACS is a Professor of Surgery, Biochemistry, Sport and Exercise Medicine in the Department of Surgery at the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina where he serves as the Director of the Bariatric Research Program. Dr. Pories’s research has been focused on trace element metabolism, the mechanisms underlying the effects of bariatric surgery and quality control of bariatric surgery. He has been funded by the NIH for almost three decades. He served as the founding Chairman of his Department, as the President of a number of surgical societies and received a number of national awards primarily for his contributions in nutrition. He retired from the US Army as a Colonel after serving as a Commander in the First Gulf War with a Legion of Merit and a Presidential Unit Citation. He is also the recipient of the O. Max Gardner Award given annually by the Trustees of the University of North Carolina to the outstanding faculty member in the 16 university system.

Philip R. Schauer, MD

Bariatric and Metabolic Institute, Cleveland Clinic

Dr. Philip Schauer is Professor of Surgery at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, Chief of Minimally Invasive General Surgery and Director of the Cleveland Clinic Bariatric and Metabolic Institute (BMI).He is past president of the American Society for Metabolic & Bariatric Surgery (ASMBS). After receiving his medical degree from the Baylor College of Medicine, Dr. Schauer completed his residency in surgery at The University of Texas, where he served as chief resident of general surgery. He then completed his fellowship in laparoscopic surgery at Duke University Medical Center. Prior to joining The Cleveland Clinic in 2004, Dr. Schauer served as director of endoscopic surgery, director of bariatric surgery and Director of the Mark Ravitch/Leon Hirsch Center for Minimally Invasive Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Dr. Schauer's clinical interests include surgery for severe obesity, minimally invasive surgery (laparoscopic), and gastrointestinal surgery. He has performed more than 5000 operations for severe obesity. His research interests include the pathophysiology of obesity and related diseases, physiologic effects of laparoscopic surgery on postoperative injury and recovery, and outcomes of laparoscopic management of obesity, gastrointestinal diseases, and hernias. He has also participated in the development of new minimally invasive, endoscopic, and laparoscopic operations. New concepts in surgical training and education have been a major focus of his educational interests. He has authored more than 200 scientific papers, editorials, textbook chapters, abstracts, and video productions. He is editor of the textbook Minimally Invasive Bariatric Surgery. He has been an invited speaker for more than 100 regional, national and international lectures on the subject of obesity surgery and laparoscopic surgery. He is principal investigator the STAMPEDE trail comparing medical and surgical treatment of diabetes and an NIH funded study evaluating surgical treatment of diabetes. He is past chairman of the research and training and credentialing committees of ASMBS. He is current chairman of the Bariatric Surgery Section of the Obesity Society. He has been on the board of Governors of the Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons. He is also a member of International Federation of Surgery for Obesity, the American Surgical Association, the Society of University Surgeons, the Society of Surgery of the Alimentary Tract, Central Surgical Society, and the Society of Clinical Surgery. He is a member of the American Board of Surgery Advisory Council and former member of the Board of Governors of the Fellowship Council. He is on the editorial board of Surgery for Obesity and Related Diseases and Obesity Surgery as well as 3 other medical journals. He has been director of more than 75 courses and workshops on advanced laparoscopic surgery and has trained more than 30 fellows in advanced laparoscopic and bariatric surgery.

Anthony Sclafani, PhD

CUNY, Brooklyn College

Dr. Anthony Sclafani earned a B.S. in Psychology at Brooklyn College and a Ph.D. in Biological Physiology at the University of Chicago in 1970. Dr. Sclafani then returned to Brooklyn College as an assistant professor of psychology in 1970. Currently, he is a distinguished professor of psychology and director of the Feeding Behavior and Nutrition Laboratory. Dr. Sclafani's laboratory examines the biopsychology of appetite, food preferences and obesity with the goal to reveal the role of flavor and post-oral nutrient effects on the appetite for high-sugar and high-fat foods. Dr. Sclafani's early research focused on hypothalamic mechanisms controlling appetite and obesity that included studies of high-fat and high-sugar diets. This led to innovative studies of diet-induced obesity in rodents and investigations on the role of taste and post-ingestive factors. Dr. Sclafani's laboratory was among the first to characterize in detail the sensory appeal of dietary fat to neonatal and adult rats, and to discover the taste for starch and starch-derived polysaccharides in rodents. This same lab has also made seminal discoveries concerning the post-oral actions of nutrients to stimulate food intake and conditioned flavor preferences. Recently this approach has been extended to the study of inbred mouse strains and genetically modified mice. This research has been supported by an NIH grant for the last 28 years. More recently, Dr. Sclafani's group has been investigating the neuropharmacology of learned flavor preferences with the support of a 5-year NIH grant and flavor conditioning by the post-ingestive actions of glutamate supported by a 2-year grant from the Ajinomoto Company.

Karen L. Teff, PhD

Monell Chemical Senses Institute and University of Pennsylvania

Karen L. Teff, Ph.D. is currently a Member of the Monell Chemical Senses Center and Director of Translational Research of the Institute for Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism at the University of Pennsylvania. She is also Assistant Director of the Master’s in Translational Research Program and as of July 1 will be Director of the Penn Clinical and Translational Research Center at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Teff has a long-standing interest in the interactions among diet, the autonomic nervous system and endocrine responses. Her research program investigates the pathophysiological consequences of increased body adiposity, including impairments in neural activation, insulin resistance and inflammation. She is also conducting studies on the metabolic impairments induced by the atypical antipsychotics. Dr. Teff holds a B.Sc. in nutrition and a Ph.D. in Experimental Medicine from McGill University. She is a member of the NIDDK DDK-C Special Review Committee and has reviewed as an ad hoc member for multiple NIDDK review committees. Dr. Teff was a Program Director at NIDDK from 2004-2006 and an elected council member of the North American Society for the Study of Obesity and an elected board member of the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior. Dr. Teff has received funding from a variety of sources including the NIH, ADA and JDRF.

Christopher C. Thompson, MD, MSc

Brigham and Women's Hospital

Dr. Christopher C. Thompson is the Director of Therapeutic Endoscopy at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He is also on staff at the Danna Farber Cancer Institute and Children’s Hospital, and is co-director of the CIMIT/DOD funded Harvard Working Group on Endoscopic Surgery. He is an active clinician with focused interest in advanced endoscopy as it applies to post surgical complications, bariatric endoscopy, reflux, and pancreatic disease. He has also established an active animal lab geared toward device development and industry partnering. The lab currently has several active protocols for NOTES and the development of endoluminal devices. He has been active in the training of medical students, residents, and gastroenterology fellows for the past several years. He is also involved in the mentoring of advanced endoscopy fellows and post-doctoral research fellows.

B. Timothy Walsh, MD

Columbia University

B. Timothy Walsh, MD, a graduate of Princeton University and of Harvard Medical School, joined the staff of Columbia University Medical Center in 1979 and established the Eating Disorders Research Unit at New York State Psychiatric Institute. Dr. Walsh is currently the Ruane Professor of Pediatric Psychopharmacology in the Department of Psychiatry at the College of Physicians & Surgeons, Columbia University, and Director of the Division of Clinical Therapeutics at New York State Psychiatric Institute. Dr. Walsh's research group has examined biological and psychological abnormalities which contribute to the development and perpetuation of disturbances in eating behavior, and investigated both psychological and pharmacological treatments for Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa and Binge Eating Disorder. Dr. Walsh is a member of the DSM-5 Task Force and chairs the Eating Disorders Workgroup for DSM-5. He is a past president of the Academy for Eating Disorders, and of the Eating Disorders Research Society.

Gene-Jack Wang, MD

Brookhaven National Laboratories

Dr. Gene-Jack Wang is a board certified Nuclear Medicine physician and a senior scientist at the Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL). In addition to performing his own research, he is the Chairman of the BNL Medical Department and holds a joint appointment as a Professor of Psychiatry at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. His research focuses on the application of PET and functional MRI to the study of various brain disorders. He is interested in using PET to study the neuro-psychiatric mechanisms and manifestations of alcoholism, drug addiction, obesity and eating disorder in humans and in animal models. Using PET, he reported similarity of brain circuits' disruption in drug addiction and in obesity. Currently, he uses PET to study the relationship between peripheral metabolic signals and brain neurotransmitters. His other interests include using functional MRI to study effect of diet control drug on brain satiety circuit and to assess cognitive function in obese subjects. He has published over 230 peer-reviewed papers on his imaging research. The National Institute of Health and pharmaceutical companies fund his ongoing research.