Program

Charles N. Bernstein, MD, FRCPC
Distinguished Professor of Medicine
Head, Section of Gastroenterology
Director, University of Manitoba, IBD Clinical and Research Centre
Bingham Chair in Gastroenterology

Dr. Charles Bernstein, graduated from the University of Manitoba Faculty of Medicine, and the UCLA Division of Gastroenterology Fellowship Training Program. He is Bingham Chair in Gastroenterology Research and Director, University of Manitoba Inflammatory Bowel Disease Clinical and Research Centre.

He developed among the largest validated population based databases of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). His main research interests are primarily related to IBD; in terms of optimizing management approaches; exploring predictors of clinical outcomes; and disease etiology. More recently, he has been actively involved in exploring the biological and clinical intersection between different chronic immune mediated inflammatory diseases.

He has published 390 peer reviewed articles, 29 book chapters and is a co-editor of one of the seminal gastrointestinal clinical-pathology textbooks (Lewin, Weinstein and Riddell's Gastrointestinal Pathology and its Clinical Implications.).

He has been elected into the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences (2008) and Royal Society of Canada -Life Sciences Division of the Academy of Science (2012). In 2012, he was awarded the Canadian Association of Gastroenterology Research Excellence Award. In 2014, he was named as Distinguished Professor at the University of Manitoba. It is the highest honor the University can bestow upon a professor. In 2017 he has been named as the recipient of the Dr. John M. Bowman Memorial Winnipeg Rh Institute Foundation Award, recognizing outstanding research accomplishments by a senior University of Manitoba faculty.

Learning objectives:
Understand whether ulcerative colitis is associated with an increased risk for colon cancer.

Discuss the role for chromoendoscopy in dysplasia surveillance in ulcerative colitis.

Khursheed Jeejeebhoy, MB BS, MRCP (Lond), PhD, FRCP (Edin), FRCP(C), FRCP (Lond)
Professor Emeritus
Department of Medicine
Department of Nutritional Sciences
St. Michael's Hospital

Dr. Khursheed Jeejeebhoy received his medical degree from the Christian Medical College Hospital in Vellore, India in 1959. Dr. Jeejeebhoy was the past Division director of Gastroenterology at the University of Toronto and the Toronto General Hospital. Where he established and directed a program for the postgraduate training of clinical and academic gastroenterologists.  

Currently he is Director of the Home parenteral nutrition program and staff physician at St. Michael's Hospital. He is also a Emeritus Professor of Medicine, cross appointed to the Department of Nutritional Sciences at the University of Toronto. He continues to practice gastroenterology at the Polyclinic. He continues his research interests through his position on the executive of the Canadian Malnutrition Task Force and as a committee member of the Canadian Clinical Practice Guidelines for Nutrition in Intensive Care.

Dr. Jeejeebhoy has published over 500 peer-reviewed articles, abstracts and book chapters to date and continues to actively publish. He has received numerous awards throughout his career including the McCollom award from the American Society of Clinical Nutrition, the British Society of Gastroenterology, a Research Awards from the Department of Medicine, University of Toronto, and the Canadian Association of Gastroenterology and Distinguished Service Award from the Ontario Association of Gastroenterology. He has been elected senior member of the Canadian Medical Association. In 2010 he recently received the Gold medal from the Canadian Association of Physicians of Indian Origin. Association of Physicians of Indian Origin. The Canadian Soicety of Nutrition established the Khursheed Jeejeebhoy Award for excellence in Clinical Nutrition. In 2011 he received the Mentor award from the American Gastroentrological Association Institute.

Melanie Beaton, MD FRCPC
Associate Professor, University of Western Ontario
London Health Sciences Centre – University Hospital

Melanie Beaton completed her MD at the University of Ottawa and residency training in Internal Medicine and Gastroenterology at the Western University. After completing her Gastroenterology training she went on to complete a research fellowship in Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease and Iron Metabolism at the Queensland Institute of Medical Research and Royal Brisbane Hospital in Brisbane, Australia. After returning to London she joined the Department of Medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology at Western University. Her clinical practice encompasses general gastroenterology with a focus in the management of IBD and fatty liver disease. She is a member of the Robarts IBD Clinical Trials group and has a research interest in the management of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and drug disposition in this condition.

Steven L. Flamm, MD
Professor of Medicine and Surgery, Division of Hepatology
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL
Chief of Transplantation, Hepatology
Medical Director of Liver Transplantation

Dr. Steven L. Flamm Flamm received his MD from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He completed internal medicine training, a chief medical residency year, clinical fellowship in gastroenterology and a research fellowship in gastroenterology and hepatology at Beth Israel Hospital, Harvard Medical School, including a specialized year of training in liver transplantation at The Deaconess Hospital, Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Flamm is a member of the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA), American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD), and is a fellow in the American College of Gastroenterology (ACG). He has served as the Region 7 Representative to the UNOS Liver and Intestine Committee and on the Publication and Practice Guidelines Committees of the AASLD. Currently, he is a trustee of the AASLD Foundation and chair of the AASLD Development Committee. Dr. Flamm is also currently a member of the Clinical Practice Guidelines Committee of the AGA, the Research Committee of the ACG, and the Illinois Hepatitis C State Task Force. He serves on the editorial board of Gastroenterology and Hepatology and is the Chair of an AGA abstract review committee.

Dr. Flamm has been the invited editor of three issues of Clinics in Liver Disease and was also the 2015 American Liver Foundation Illinois Chapter Honoree.

Dr. Flamm has published widely in the field of hepatic diseases and has spoken both nationally and internationally on many liver-related topics including viral hepatitis, autoimmune hepatitis, primary biliary cholangitis, hepatic encephalopathy, and liver transplantation. He has an active clinical research program for patients with many different chronic liver diseases including chronic viral hepatitis (HBV and HCV) hepatic encephalopathy, acute liver failure, primary biliary cholangitis and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).

Neeraj Narula, MD, FRCPC
Assistant Professor of Medicine, McMaster University
Staff Gastroenterologist, Hamilton Health Sciences Centre
Clinical Associate, Mount Sinai Hospital

Dr. Neeraj Narula is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at McMaster University, staff gastroenterologist in Hamilton Health Sciences, and clinical associate at Mount Sinai Hospital. He completed the Present-Levison advanced fellowship in inflammatory bowel diseases at Mount Sinai Medical Centre in New York, NY, in 2015. He is a diplomate of the Program of Clinical Effectiveness at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in 2016. He trained to be a Chartered Accountant at the University of Waterloo and has worked at Ernst & Young and KPMG. He subsequently attended medical school at the University of Alberta. He graduated from internal medicine residency and gastroenterology fellowship training at McMaster University. His research interests are predominantly in clinical epidemiology, nutrition, and pharmaceutical trials in IBD.

Presentation Overview:
This presentation will focus on management of secondary loss of response in patients using biologic therapies

Vipul Jairath, BSc, MBChB, PhD, MRCP (UK)
Associate Professor of Medicine, Epidemiology and Biostatistics
Division of Gastroenterology
University of Western Ontario
London Health Sciences Centre

Vipul Jairath is Associate Professor of Medicine, Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Western University and his clinical practice is based at University Hospital, London Ontario. His research interests are in clinical trials, endpoint development and methodology. Prior to moving to Canada, he was a consultant gastroenterologist at Oxford University hospitals and a lecturer at Oxford University, with career funding from the National Institute for Health Research. He is a principal or co-investigator for several randomized trials.

Jordan Feld, MD, MPH, FRCPC
Associate Professor of Medicine
University of Toronto,
Toronto Centre for Liver Disease
Toronto General Hospital

Dr. Jordan Feld graduated from medical school at the University of Toronto in 1997 and then completed residency programs in Internal Medicine and Gastroenterology. Following his clinical training, Dr. Feld focused on developing skills in clinical and laboratory research in liver disease, with a particular interest in viral hepatitis. He completed a clinical research fellowship in hepatology and then spent four years doing clinical and laboratory research in the Liver Diseases Branch of the National Institutes of Health. He received a Masters of Public Health with a focus on Infectious Diseases as a Sommer Scholar from Johns Hopkins University and has worked extensively abroad, maintaining a strong interest in International Health. Currently, Dr. Feld is clinician-scientist based at the Toronto Western Hospital Liver Clinic and the McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health.

Presentation Overview:

1. Recognize the risk of hepatitis B reactivation in the setting of immunosuppressive therapy
2. Understand the treatment options for management and prevention of hepatitis B reactivation

Hepatitis B reactivation is a recognized potentially life-threatening complication of immunosuppressive therapy. The risk of reactivation depends on the serological profile of the patient, with those who are HBsAg positive being at much higher risk than those who have cleared HBsAg. The risk also depends greatly on the degree of immunosuppression. Risks have been fairly well quantified in the setting of cancer chemotherapy but less so with the use of biologics and other immunomodulatory therapy. Recently HBV reactivation has been reported in the setting of treatment of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. Prophylactic antiviral therapy has been shown to largely prevent HBV reactivation and the associated complications, however the timing and duration of therapy as well as which patients require therapy has not been entirely clarified. The risks of HBV reactivation and its complications will be discussed with suggestions on optimal management strategies in various clinical settings.