Invited speakers
Below are our invited speakers.
Listed by alpha order by surname.
Prof Frank Bloomfield
Frank Bloomfield is Director of the Liggins Institute at the University of Auckland, New Zealand and Professor of Neonatology. He trained in the Manchester, Auckland and Toronto and has worked for many years as a consultant neonatologist at National Women’s Hospital NICU in Auckland. His research spans experimental physiology through to clinical trials with a focus on fetal and neonatal nutrition and growth, and the long-term consequences of altered nutrition and growth in early life.
Dr Glenda Courtney-Martin
Undergraduate degree in Nutrition from Ryerson University. Masters and PhD from the University of Toronto. Member of the College of Dietitians of Ontario, having completed her Dietetic Internship at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto. Currently, a Clinical Dietitian and Health Clinician Scientist at SickKids, Toronto, Canada.
She is one of the dietitians on the multidisciplinary intestinal rehabilitation team (GIFT) who manages the care of patient with intestinal failure at SickKids. She serves on the Best Practice and Long-Term Parenteral Nutrition (PN) Monitoring Committees at SickKids to develop and implement guidelines to optimize Nutrition Support of patients on PN.
Dr Simon Gabe
Dr Gabe is a consultant in gastroenterology & intestinal rehabilitation at St Mark's Hospital and chair of the NHS National Reference Centre for Severe Intestinal Failure St Mark’s. This is also now a recognised ESPEN Training Centre. He has a wide clinical experience in dealing with complex nutritional problems, inflammatory bowel disease, fistula management, intestinal failure requiring enteral or parenteral support, home parenteral nutrition and consideration of intestinal transplantation.
Dr Gabe is a past President of BAPEN. He co-founded the National Adult Small Intestinal Transplant Forum and is an active member of a Clinical Reference Group within NHS England, helping to develop a network within England for all patients with Intestinal Failure.
Dr Gabe has completed an MD as well as MSc in Clinical Nutrition. His academic and research interests include nutrition (including intestinal failure & enterocutaneous fistulae), home parenteral nutrition (survival & growth factors), intestinal transplantation and intestinal tissue engineering.
Dr Michael Green
Dr. Green’s clinical and research interests have focused on infections in children undergoing SOT, with a particular interest in EBV infections and PTLD. He was co-editor of the 1stand 2nd Edition of the only textbook dedicated to the topic of EBV associated PTLD and serves as Associate Editor for the American Journal of Transplantation, Pediatric Transplantation and the Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Disease Society. He was co-editor of the 1st and 4thEditions of the Guidelines for the Prevention and Management of Infectious Complications of Solid Organ Transplantation published by the American Society of Transplantation and is a past chair for the OPTN/UNOS ad hoc Disease Transmission Advisory Committee.
Dr Girish Gupte
Dr Girish Gupte is a Consultant Paediatric Hepatologist at Birmingham Women's and Children's Hospital NHS Foundation trust since 2004 and is the Clinical Lead for the Intestinal Transplantation service and Metabolic liver disease service. He did his undergraduate and postgraduate training in Paediatrics in Mumbai, India and came to the UK for further training in 1995. He did his initial training in various parts of the country and did his specialist training in Paediatric Hepatology at Birmingham Children's Hospital from 2001-2004.
His main areas of interest are non-invasive markers of rejection in liver and/or intestinal transplantation, quality of life following transplantation, antibody mediated rejection in liver and /or intestinal transplantation, nutrition in liver and/or intestinal transplantation.
He has delivered lectures nationally and internationally on various topics related to liver diseases and intestinal transplantation. He has organised postgraduate courses at national and international level, study days to further knowledge about management of paediatric liver disease and intestinal transplantation
He is currently on the ESPGHAN Hepatology Committee (2016-) and has been in Executive committee (Treasurer BSPGHAN 2014-2017) and also served on the council of IRTA (Intestinal Rehabilitation and Transplant Association 2009-2013), past chair of NITE (Network for Intestinal failure and Transplantation in Europe). He is deputy chair of the MCTAG advisory group for NHSBT and is keen to promote organ donation within various communities.
In his spare time he enjoys spending time with his family and having a good laugh with his friends over a glass of...
Dr Jason Hawksworth
Dr. Hawksworth received his undergraduate degree from The United States Military Academy at West point and his medical degree from Wake Forest University Bowman Gray School of Medicine. Upon graduation, Dr. Hawksworth completed general surgery residency at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Following residency, he completed an abdominal transplant and hepatobiliary surgery fellowship at Georgetown University Hospital. He is currently an attending transplant surgeon at the MedStar Georgetown Transplant Institute in Washington DC. Dr. Hawksworth’s clinical interests include robotic and minimally invasive liver, bile duct, and pancreas surgery. He also performs adult and pediatric kidney, liver, intestine and multivisceral transplantation. His research interests include clinical transplant trials and he has published over 40 scientific manuscripts and book chapters in leading journals such as Annals of Surgery, American Journal of Transplantation and Transplantation. Dr. Hawksworth is in the Army and has deployed four times to support combat operations in Afghanistan and the Middle East on a Forward Surgical Team. He is a member of several key organizations including a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, American Society of Transplant Surgeons, Intestinal Rehabilitation and Transplant Association, and Americas Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary Association.
Dr Jonathan Hind
Jonathan is a paediatric Hepatologist at King’s College Hospital in London. He developed and leads the intestinal rehabilitation and transplant service there, having gained experience in Birmingham and Pittsburgh; and linking with Great Ormond Street Hospital. His interest in technology and new ways of working led him to develop a remote monitoring solution in conjunction with his patients, many of whom live far from King’s.
Jonathan also has leadership roles as the deputy clinical director of the children’s hospital at King’s, nationally as a quality advisor for the RCPCH and internationally as the treasurer of the intestinal rehabilitation and transplant association.
Prof Greg O’Grady
Greg O’Grady is a Professor of Surgery and colorectal surgeon at Auckland City Hospital. He leads the Surgical Engineering Lab at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, where his team develop novel medical device solutions for gastrointestinal diseases, including chyme reinfusion solutions in intestinal failure. Professor O’Grady also has a deep interest in better diagnosing specific causes of gut dysmotility.
Lisa Sharkey
I have been part of the Cambridge Intestinal and Multivisceral Transplant program since 2013 and am now the medical lead for the service. I regularly chair the national listing meeting (NASIT) and represent Cambridge on the NHSBT advisory group. My research interests include IFALD, graft function and nutritional outcomes following transplantation and detection/management of graft rejection. I am very interested in nutrition teaching and training and hold various national posts related to this. In my spare time I enjoy cycling, cooking and taking my very energetic Beagle for long walks.
Stephanie So
Stephanie is a physiotherapist from SickKids in Toronto, Canada. She works in the Liver and Intestinal Transplant and Intestinal Rehabilitation Program (GIFT). She is also a lecturer at the University of Toronto. She has published several research articles looking at neurodevelopmental outcomes and physical function in children with Intestinal failure and physical function and activity outcomes in children post liver transplant. She is an active member of the IRTA Allied Health Committee.
Dr Mattias Soop
I am a surgeon specialising in the management of inflammatory bowel disease and intestinal failure. I completed general surgical training and a PhD in surgery in 2004 at the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm and Salford Royal Hospital, Manchester, UK, and then did a postdoc and a clinical fellowship in colorectal surgery at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN. I then worked at The University of Auckland, NZ, and at the Irving National Intestinal Failure Unit at Salford Royal Hospital as a consultant surgeon and associate professor. In 2019, I returned to Stockholm to develop an IBD Centre at Ersta Hospital. I also serve as Section Editor at Diseases of the Colon and Rectum and on the ESPEN Scientific Committee.
Mr Graham Starkey
Graham is a surgeon with an interest in HPB surgery and liver / intestinal transplantation in adults and children. He works at Austin Health and the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne, Australia.
A/Prof Adam Testro
A/Prof Adam Testro is a gastroenterologist based at Austin Health, in Melbourne Australia. He is the medical lead for the adult arm of the Australian Intestinal Transplant Service and a transplant hepatologist within the unit's busy adult liver transplant service. He has previously spent time with both the paediatric small bowel transplant program in Birmingham, UK and the small bowel transplant program at UPMC, Pittsburgh, USA.
Will Thomas
Will Thomas has been a consultant haematologist at Addenbrooke's Hospital since 2017, looking after patients with bleeding and thrombotic disorders. He is the UKHCDO centre director currently. He has a research interest in clinical and laboratory haemostasis. He also has experience of looking after patients with haematological complications after solid organ transplantation.
Karen Winterbourn
Karen lives in Sydney Australia and has been on home parenteral nutrition (HPN) for over 14 years as a result of Short Bowel Syndrome-Intestinal Failure from Crohn’s disease and volvulus. An avid traveller before illness, she eagerly took on travel with HPN – across Australia, New Zealand and Europe.
Karen is the immediate past President (for approximately 8 years) of the HPN consumer support group, Parenteral Nutrition Down Under (PNDU), and was lead author of PNDU’s first published peer-reviewed paper “Retraining of home parenteral nutrition (HPN) users in Australia and New Zealand: a consumer audit”.
Currently Karen is relishing good health and time ‘smelling the roses’.
Dr Darren Wong
Darren is a gastroenterologist at the Austin Hospital in Melbourne, Australia with an interest in clinical nutrition/intestinal rehabilitation. He completed his undergraduate medical degree at the University of Melbourne in 2007 followed by postgraduate advanced training in Gastroenterology and Hepatology through the Austin Hospital, the Royal Melbourne Hospital, and St Vincent’s Hospital and was awarded the FRACP in 2015. His PhD thesis, completed in 2018, focussed on the humoral immunopathogenesis of chronic hepatitis B infection. Following this, he undertook three fellowships in the UK spanning intestinal failure (St Marks Hospital, London), inflammatory bowel disease (John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford), and multivisceral transplantation (Addenbrookes Hospital, Cambridge) before returning to Melbourne.