Stephen E. Attwood, MD, FRCSI
Stephen E. Attwood, MD, FRCSI, is honorary professor in health services research at Durham University in Durham, UK, and an independent consulting advisor on research in esophageal diseases. Most recently, he was a consultant surgeon at Northumbria Healthcare in Northumberland, UK.
Since identifying Eosinophilic oesophagitis (EoE) in 1989 and publishing the first description of the disease in 1992, Professor Attwood has spent his career caring for patients with EoE. He has been actively engaged in clinical trials of upper gastrointestinal diseases, including budesonide formulations for EoE; the ASPECT trial of cancer prevention in Barrett’s esophagus; BEST3, a study of Cytosponge screening for Barrett’s esophagus in general practices; Endobarrier, a UK study of endoscopic anti-obesity therapy; the LOTUS trial (surgery vs proton pump inhibitor for reflux therapy); and EndoStim, an electrical neuromodulator of the lower oesophageal sphincter for the treatment of gastroesophageal reflux disease. His clinical practice provides minimally invasive treatment for upper gastrointestinal disorders, including endoscopy and laparascopic surgery. The author of 200 publications, including many papers and guidelines on EoE, he is the senior author of the British Society of Gastroenterology Guideline on Therapeutic Dilatation of the Oesophagus and the European Guidelines on Eosinophilic Oesophagitis.
Alex Straumann, MD
Chairman Swiss EoE Clinic
Department of Gastroenterology
University Hospital Zuerich
CH-8000 Zuerich
Switzerland
Tel +41 79 290 82 85
email: alex.straumann@hin.ch
Francesca Racca
Francesca Racca is an Allergologist and Clinical Immunologist.
She graduated in Medicine and Surgery in Pavia, Italy, in 2011 with an experimental thesis entitled “Effects of intraluminal acid perfusion on esophageal motility: manoimpedenzometric study”. She then starded her Residency training in Allergology and Clinical Immunology focusing on the role of the immune system and viruses in gastrointestinal diseases and the multidisciplinary approach to immune-mediated disease. She specialized with honneurs in 2017 with the experimental thesis entitled “Gastrointestinal involvement in mastocytosis: data of patients afferent to a multispecialistic clinic in Pavia”.
Francesca currently works at IRCCS Humanitas Research Hospital in Rozzano and Humanitas Gavazzeni in Bergamo, Italy, where she is dedicated to patient care and scientific research in the fields of type 2 inflammatory diseases, allergen immunotherapy and molecular allergy diagnosis.
In 2019, Dr. Racca cofounded the Multidisciplinary Outpatient Ambulatory dedicated to Primary Eosinophilic Digestive Diseases in Humanitas. Now, she serves as Referent for Eosinophilic Gastroenteritis of the Humanitas Network Presidium within the Lombardia Regional Network for Rare Diseases and as Secretary for the Allergy to Food and GI Working Group of the Italian Society of Allergology and Clinical Immunology (SIAAIC).
In addition, Francesca Racca has been an Adjunct Professor at Humanitas University since April 2019, where she contributes to teaching Thorax Examination and Problem-Based Learning in the Medicine and Surgery program. She also serves on the Scientific Committee of the Italian Eosinophilic Esophagitis Patient Association (ESEO).
Dr. Gary W. Falk
Dr. Gary W. Falk is professor of medicine in the division of gastroenterology at Penn Medicine.
He received his undergraduate and medical degrees from the University of Rochester. He completed his internal medicine residency training at George Washington University and his gastroenterology fellowship training at the University of Michigan. After completing his fellowship training, he joined the staff of the Cleveland Clinic Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology in 1986 where he has previously been director of the GI fellowship training program. Prior to his position at Penn Medicine, Dr. Falk was professor of medicine at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University and director of the Center for Esophageal and Swallowing Disorders at the Cleveland Clinic Digestive Disease Institute.
In 2006, Dr. Falk received a Master of Science in Clinical Research from Case Western Reserve University. He has published over 140 original articles, reviews, book chapters, and editorials. Dr. Falk's research interests focus on Barrett's esophagus with an emphasis on early detection and prevention of esophageal adenocarcinoma along with eosinophilic esophagitis.
At a national level, Dr. Falk is currently an associate editor of the American Journal of Gastroenterology and a contributor to the Selected Summaries section of Gastroenterology. He is a past president of the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, where he served from 2006-2007.
Dr. Falk obtained the AGA Distinguished Clinician Award, 2014, and the GI Clinical Excellence Award. University of Pennsylvania Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, 2023
Salvatore Oliva
Salvatore Oliva is a Pediatrician qualified as a Pediatric Gastroenterologist and working as Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Pediatric Gastroenterology and Liver Unit, Sapienza – University of Rome. During the last 10 years, he has published over 113 manuscripts and 20 book chapters in international peer-reviewed journals indexed in Pubmed/Medline and/or Scopus/ISI, especially in the field of Pediatrics, Gastroenterology and Gastrointestinal Endoscopy. Prof. Oliva has been invited to review papers for several journals. He participated in training and lecturing medical students and Masters trainees at the Medical School of Sapienza – University of Rome. He is a member of the European Society of Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition (ESPGHAN) and currently involved in several working groups: Endoscopy Working Group, Eosinophilic gastrointestinal disorders WG (EGDIs) and in the IBD Interest Group.
Prof. Oliva is currently coordinating the European Prospective Pediatric Registry of Eosinophilic Esophagitis (pEEr) and The Pediatric Eosinophilic Gastrointestinal Disorders Biobank (PEGID-BB) on behalf of ESPGHAN. He has been a visiting scientist at Cincinnati Center for Eosinophilic
Disorders, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center (Ohio, USA), and he is a member of the steering committee of the EUREOS as a pediatric officer since 2020.
