Professor Carel le Roux graduated from medical school in Pretoria South Africa, completed his specialist training in metabolic medicine at St Bartholomew’s Hospitals and the Hammersmith Hospitals. He obtained his PhD from Imperial College London where he later took up a faculty position. He moved to University College Dublin for the Chair in Experimental Pathology and he is now a Director of the Metabolic Medicine Group. He also holds the position of Professor of Metabolic Medicine at Ulster University and Extra-Ordinary Professor of Chemical Pathology at University of Pretoria. He currently coordinates an Innovative Medicine Initiative project on obesity. He previously received a President of Ireland Young Researcher Award, Irish Research Council Laurate Award, Clinician Scientist Award from the National Institute Health Research in the UK, and a Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Fellowship for his work on how the gut talks to the brain.

Qualifications

Current post

Research

Geltrude Mingrone is one of the pioneers showing that bariatric surgery induces the remission of type 2 diabetes in people with obesity, even before any meaningful weight loss. She published the first randomized controlled trial comparing the efficacy of lifestyle modification and best medical care with that of bariatric surgery in the New England Journal of Medicine and both the 5-year and 10-year follow-up in The Lancet. She demonstrated that the bypass of the duodenum and the jejunum reverses diabetes and insulin resistance and searched for their mediators. She found that bypassing the small intestine by surgery prevents it from producing heat shock proteins, mainly glucose regulatory protein 78 (GRP78), which cause insulin resistance, resulting in improved glucose homeostasis. The Western diet causes endoplasmic reticulum (ER) overload in the epithelium of the upper gut inducing unfolded protein accumulation. This, in turn, causes the dissociation of GRP78 from the ER transmembrane receptors PERK, ATF6 and IRE1 and the secretion of GRP78 in the blood stream. In the liver GRP78 causes non-alcoholic steato-hepatitis and insulin resistance in the skeletal muscle.

Academic career

Geltrude Mingrone studied medicine and completed her residency in endocrinology and gastroenterology at the Catholic University & Policlinico A. Gemelli in Rome, Italy. She received her PhD in clinical pharmacology from the University of Ghent in Belgium. She returned to the Catholic University in 1994 as an assistant professor in the Division of Metabolic Diseases. She became associate professor at the same university in 2000 and is the Chief of the Division of Obesity and Related Disorders at the University Hospital Policlinic° A. Gemelli. Since 2015, she also holds a part-time position as Professor of Diabetes and Nutrition at the King's College London, UK. Since 2018, she participates as one of the representatives of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes to issuing the guidelines for the therapy of type 2 diabetes together with the American Diabetes Association representatives. These guidelines have been published simultaneously in Diabetes Care and in Diabetologia in 2018, updated in 2019 and rewritten at the light of new evidences in 2022.

Senior Specialist in Medical Oncology and Internal Medicine.

• Thoracic Oncology and Sarcoma Division - Kuwait Cancer Control Center.
• Graduated from Medical school Kuwait University 2009
• Obtained Internal medicine degree MRCP(UK) 2016
• Graduated from Kuwaiti Board of Internal Medicine KBIM 2017
• Medical Oncology Residency 2020 and Fellowship training in Thoracic Oncology and Sarcoma in 2022 University of Ottawa, Canada.

Dr. Ahmad Alhashemi is an Assistant Professor at the Dept of Medicine, Kuwait University and Senior Specialist in Endocrine & Diabetes at Adan Hospital, and is the Program Director of the Kuwaiti Board of Internal Medicine.

He received his medical degree from Kuwait University. He then completed his postgraduate training at the University of Toronto in Internal Medicine, Endocrine, and Metabolism.

BSc., MD., FRCSC., FACS.

General and Metabolic & Bariatric Surgery Consultant, Surgery Department, Al-Amiri Hospital Critical Care Consultant, Attaché Critical Care & Anesthesia Department, Al-Amiri Hospital State of Kuwait

Concise Biography

Dr. Asmaa Al Rashed is a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Canada and a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons. She has received her training and board certification in General Surgery from McGill University and has completed Critical Care fellowship in McGill University, Montreal, Canada, and then completed Laparoscopic Bariatric and Metabolic Surgery fellowship in Laval University, Quebec City, Canada. She works as a general and bariatric surgery consultant in the Department of Surgery and as a consultant intensivist in the Department of Critical Care and Anesthesia in Al-Amiri Hospital, Kuwait.

Dr. Al Rashed has a wide experience in undergraduate and postgraduate medical education and has had verity of academic roles such as Assistant Program Director of the Surgical Foundations Programs, Clinical Tutor, and Lecturer for the General Surgery Residency Program and Critical Care in Kuwait Institution for Medical Specializations (KIMS) and as a Clinical Preceptor for the PharmD Program and as a Clinical Tutor for medical students in the Faculty of Medicine and the Faculty of Pharmacy in Kuwait University.

Dr. Al Rashed has numerous administrative and leadership roles, her research and clinical work are focused on quality of care in obesity, bariatric and metabolic surgery and on achieving equity in surgery. She has created and led numerous quality improvement projects, one of which is the foundation of the Adiposity-Based Chronic Diseases (ABCD) Specialized Clinic in Al-Amiri Hospital in 2019. She has introduced verity of services to improve the care of patients suffering from obesity.

Dr. Al Rashed is a fierce advocate in the professional surgical community, she has founded the Women Surgeons of Kuwait (WSK) group and led the foundation of the Women Surgeons Committee in Kuwait Association of Surgeons, co-founded the Women Surgeons Research Network (WSKRN) and the WSK Mentorship Program. She spearheaded the foundation of the Women Surgeons of the Gulf group inspiring a regional movements for women in surgery.

Dr. Al Rashed is an invited speaker by regional and international academic institutions and professional societies, she has presented and chaired sessions and conferences and has won several awards for her contributions in the field of surgery.

BMSc(hons), MBChB, MRCP(UK), CCT(UK), FACN
American Board Of Physician Nutrition Specialist

Dr. Al Ozairi has completed her intercalated BMSc (hons) in molecular pathology at Dundee University (UK) and graduated from Aberdeen University (UK) for her medical undergraduate studies and post graduated in Diabetes and Endocrinology at Newcastle University (UK). She was awarded the Fulbright fellowship to Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA to complete 2 years in Clinical Research.

Dr. Ebaa Al Ozairi holds the American Board for Physician Nutrition Specialist and is a fellow at the American College of Nutrition and completed Rabkin Fellowship in medical Education at Harvard Medical school. She is a reviewer for Lancet Endocrinology, European Journal for Endocrinology, Diabetic Medicine, Obesity, Surgery and frontier in Endocrinology.

Dr. Al Ozairi has 4 chapters in International books and an author in Medscape, bariatric times and Endo diabology and has more than 65 peer reviewed publications, in addition to more than 120 oral presentations in regional and international conferences. Dr Alozairi has won his highness the Amir Gold medal electronic award and the Arab regional award for e-‐technology for co-founding the most comprehensive Arabic Diabetes Website. She was the 1st woman to become the president of American Association of Clinical Endocrinologist – Gulf Chapter and serve in the World Obesity Federation.

Dr. Al Ozairi is currently the Chief Medical Officer at Dasman Diabetes Institute and Consultant Diabetes, Endocrinology and Nutrition and at faculty of Medicine

Pediatric Diabatologist in Amiri Hospital

I have peadiatric bord from kuwait institute for medical specialization and i got my diabetic fellowship from Kuwait

Specialist in Obstetrics and Gynecology

MRCOG and Kuwaiti board of Obgyn

Reproductive Medicine and Assisted Conception specialist

Senior specialist in Gastroenterology and Hepatology, specialized in advanced endoscopy working in Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah Hospital.

• Graduated from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland
• Member of the Royal College of Physicians (UK)
• Completed Gastroenterology and Hepatology training at the University of British Columbia, Canada
• Specialised further in Therapeutic Endoscopy (ERCP & EUS) at the University of British Columbia, Canada
• Specializing in Metabolic Disease and Bariatric Endoscopy, Barcelona, Spain

• Founder and President of Kuwait Obesity Association
• Consultant endocrinologist
• American and Canadian board in endocrinlogy and metabolism
• American and Canadian board in internal medicine
• Published several articles in NEJM and JCEM
• Author of the book stories from the clinic