Research Director at INRAE, the French National Research Institute for Agricultural and Food Research, Hervé Blottière presently heads a research laboratory studying the Human Intestinal Ecosystem within the MICALIS institute “Food and Gut Microbiology for Human Health”.
Professor Stéphane Schneider heads the Nutritional Support Unit in the Gastroenterology and Nutrition Department Archet University Hospital in Nice (France). He is also head of the Nice University Hospital’s food-nutrition liaison committee. Dr. Schneider is vice-president of the French-Speaking Society for Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism (SFNEP), and former chair of the Educational and Clinical Practice Committee of the European Society for Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism (ESPEN).
Dr. Versalovic currently serves as Pathologist-In-Chief at Texas Children’s Hospital. He also serves as Vice Chair of Pathology & Immunology at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM), and Director of the Texas Children’s Microbiome Center. 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.
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.
Professor Patrice D. Cani is a researcher from the Belgian Fund for Scientific Research (FRS-FNRS-WELBIO). He is leading a team at the Louvain Drug Research Institute (LDRI) from the University of Louvain (UCLouvain), Brussels, Belgium. His main research interests are the investigation of interactions between the gut microbiota and the host in the context of obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiometabolic disorders and cancer. He is author and co-author of more than 260 scientific research publications, reviews and book chapters. His motto is: “In Gut We Trust”.
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.
Mary Ellen Sanders is a consultant in the area of probiotic microbiology, with special expertise on paths to scientific substantiation of probiotic product label claims. Dr. Sanders served as the founding president of the International Scientific Association for Probiotics and Prebiotics and is currently the organization’s executive science officer.