France
Patrick Veiga is a Research Director specializing in gut microbiota and its links with nutrition and health. He is the Scientific Director of the Le French Gut project and of MetaGenoPolis, the lab coordinating it. He also serves as a board member of the Pharmabiotic Research Institute. Throughout his career, he has worked in both academia and industry, including as a visiting researcher at Harvard University. His expertise spans gut microbiota research, nutrition, probiotics, and the emerging field of precision nutrition.
Dr. Karen Madsen is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Alberta and Director of the Centre of Excellence for Gastrointestinal Inflammation and Immunity Research (CEGIIR). She specializes in studying the gut microbiome's role in health and disease, focusing on therapies for inflammatory bowel disease and metabolic disorders. Dr. Madsen has published over 150 research papers and received multiple awards for her contributions to medical research and education. You can follow her on X at @madsen_ca.
Professor Everard is a senior researcher from the Belgian Fund for Scientific Research (FRS-FNRS-WEL Research Institute). She is leading a team at the Louvain Drug Research Institute (LDRI) from the University of Louvain (UCLouvain), Brussels, Belgium. The main topic of interest of her team in research is to study how gut microbes are able to impact eating behaviours. More specifically, she is investigating the interactions between the gut microbiota, the intestine and the brain in the context of obesity and eating disorders.
Research Director at the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment, INRAE, Dr. Joël Doré is currently Scientific Director of the Pre-Industrial Demonstrator MetaGenoPolis, a platform of excellence dedicated to quantitative and functional metagenomics, funded by the French government Futures Investments. He is co-lead of a research team of the MICALIS institute “Food and Gut Microbiology for Human Health”.
Director of Research at INRAE, the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment. After 18 years spent at Micalis Institute in Paris suburban area (Jouy-en Josas) as head of a research team, he is now the Director of the Nantes Université/INRAE Joint Research Unit 1280 PhAN "Pathophysiology of Nutritional Adaptations" at the University Hospital of Nantes and deputy Scientific Director at MetaGenoPolis, the Excellence Center for microbiome analysis (Jouy en Josas).
Professor Stéphane Schneider heads the Gastroenterology and Nutrition Department of Archet University Hospital in Nice (France). He is Treasurer of the European Society for Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism (ESPEN). His interests include intestinal diseases and the role of the microbiota in these diseases.
Dr. Versalovic currently serves as the inaugural President of the Texas Children’s Research Institute (TCRI) as well as the Pathologist-in-Chief and Chair of The Texas Children’s Department of Pathology at Texas Children’s Hospital. He holds the Milton J. Finegold endowed chair as Professor of Pathology & Immunology, and is Professor of Pediatrics, Molecular and Human Genetics, and Molecular Virology & Microbiology at BCM. He also serves as Vice-Chair of Pathology and Immunology at BCM.
Dr. Verdu’s research has focused on the pathophysiology of inflammatory and functional gastrointestinal disorders. She undertook clinical research training at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, where she studied the interaction between chronic infection with Helicobacter pylori and gastritis in humans and the possible therapeutic role of probiotic bacteria.
Dr. Bercik obtained an MD degree from Charles University, Prague, Czechoslovakia. He then pursued post-graduate doctoral studies at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, where he investigated neural control of gastrointestinal motility.