MISSION
The panNASH Initiative aims to increase awareness and disseminate knowledge related to NASH as a multisystem disease with a focus on PPAR agonists among the scientific and clinical community, patients and other key stakeholders within the healthcare system and thus improving the lives of millions of patients worldwide.
The panNASH Initiative is a working group consisting of a committee of international independent experts dedicated to increase the visibility and contribute to a better understanding of NASH, including improving diagnosis and establishing best practices for the treatment of the disease.
The committee includes European and American medical experts in areas related to NASH, such as hepatology, diabetes and cardiology, along with scientific experts focused on promoting a better understanding of the pathophysiological mechanisms involved in NASH.
OBJECTIVES
The panNASH Initiative intends to develop and disseminate new findings about NASH through publications, conferences and training sessions. It focuses on risk factors for the development of the disease, the identification of patients at risk, clinical markers and associated health risks, as well as the development of new treatments. Specifically, the panNASH Initiative is working to increase knowledge of the underlying pathological mechanisms of NASH ranging from metabolic disorders to fibrosis, with a focus on the modulating role in the disease played by PPARs (peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors).
EDITORS
Manal F. Abdelmalek, MD, MPH is Director of Hepatology and institutional lead for investigator-initiated and industry-sponsored multicenter clinical studies, Mayo Clinic, USA. Until recently, she was tenured Professor of Medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at…
Professor Byrne trained as a clinical scientist in the UK and the US, at Cardiff, Cambridge and Stanford Universities. He undertook a PhD studying liver lipid metabolism at Cambridge University. He was a post-doctoral fellow at Stanford University and then an MRC fellow at Cambridge University.
Dr. Cusi is a Professor of Medicine and Chief of the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism at The University of Florida at Gainesville (2011-present). He is also a faculty and researcher at the Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism Division at the Veterans Administration Medical Center at…
He received his medical degree and did his internal medicine residency in Buenos Aires, Argentina and completed a fellowship in Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas. He moved to San Antonio, Texas (1992) to work on the role of defects in insulin secretion and insulin resistance to the development of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), as well as on complications associated with T2DM. He later focused on the relationship and underlying mechanisms of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in T2DM and its impact on dyslipidemia, diabetes control and cardiovascular disease. Dr. Cusi has contributed to the field on the underlying mechanisms of NAFLD in obesity and diabetes, and published the first RCT on pioglitazone for NASH for patients with prediabetes or T2DM (Belfort et al, NEJM 2006). This was followed by a recent long-term study confirming its value in this population (Cusi et al, Annals Intern Med 2016). Dr. Cusi’s current work at the University of Florida centers on discovering the mechanism(s) leading to NASH and searching for novel treatments.
Dr. Cusi has published more than 150 original articles, reviews and book chapters in a broad spectrum of peer-reviewed journals, such as the New England Journal of Medicine, Annals of Internal Medicine, Proceeding of the National Academy of Science, Journal of Clinical Investigation, Diabetes, Diabetes Care, J Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, American Journal of Physiology, Hepatology, Gastroenterology and others. He is an associate editor and reviewer for many journals in the fields of endocrinology, metabolism, diabetes and liver disease. He is a frequent invited lecturer to national and international meetings on the role of obesity and NAFLD in T2DM. He is a member of the NIH Clinical and Integrative Diabetes and Obesity (CIDO) study section and contributed to the panel of the 2012 and 2017 NASH guidelines of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases. In 2015 Dr. Cusi received 2 prestigious awards by the University of Florida, the Exemplary Teacher Award and the Clinical Research Award for outstanding achievement, research discovery, and productivity from the College of Medicine.
Jean-Francois Dufour studied mathematics at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, and received his medical degree from the Geneva Medical School. After training in internal medicine at the University Hospital Geneva and the University Hospital Bern, he joined the laboratory of Professor I.
Prof. Dr. Sven Francque obtained his MD at the University of Antwerp, Belgium, in 1994 and was subsequently trained in internal medicine and in gastroenterology and hepatology at the Antwerp University Hospital, Belgium and at the Department of Hepatology of the Beaujon hospital, Clichy, France.
CHAIRMAN
Professor Dr. Michael Roden is Chair of Endocrinology and Metabolic Diseases, Heinrich-Heine University, Director of the Division of Endocrinology and Diabetology, University Clinics Düsseldorf and CEO of the German Diabetes Center (DDZ). He was trained at University of Vienna and Yale University. His translational studies..
1979-1986 : Medicine, University of Vienna, Austria
Advanced academic qualifications
Habilitation: 1994, Modulation of hepatic insulin sensitivity, University of Vienna, Austria
Graduation: 1986 Dr. med. univ., University of Vienna, Austria
Dr. Sacks is Professor of Cardiovascular Disease Prevention in the Nutrition Department of Harvard Chan School of Public Health; Professor of Genetics & Complexes Diseases; and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Sacks led the panel designing the DASH Study, which crafted a healthful…
Dr. Sacks’s laboratory has studied the role of apolipoproteins in atherogenic lipoprotein metabolism in obesity and hypertriglyceridemia. He authored over 30 research papers on apoC-3 and/or apoE. Recently he discovered that a type of HDL that contains apolipoprotein C-III predicted higher rates of heart disease and diabetes, the opposite to the protective relation for the total HDL; and impaired HDL function in reverse cholesterol transport.
Dr. Sacks teaches at Harvard School of Public Health as course director for nutritional biochemistry. Dr. Sacks received the 2011 Research Achievement Award of the American Heart Association for lifetime research accomplishment.
Prof. Arun J. Sanyal is the Reno Vlahcevic Professor of Medicine at VCU School of Medicine. He has over 30 years of experience as a leading physician-scientist and undertakes academic research in two major areas of hepatology: cirrhosis and its complications..
Gyongyi Szabo, MD, PhD is the Worcester Foundation for Biomedical Research Endowed Chair, Professor and Vice Chair of Medicine and Associate Provost at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Dr. Szabo is an internationally recognized leader in the field of liver immunology and inflammation.
She is the lead investigator on an NIH-supported multicenter clinical trial in alcoholic hepatitis. Her laboratory studies the cellular and molecular mechanisms of inflammation and innate immunity in liver injury to identify therapeutic targets in liver diseases including non-alcoholic liver disease and NASH. Her investigations recently revealed the importance of micro-RNAs and extracellular vesicles in liver diseases.
Dr. Szabo’s is member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and fellow of the AASLD, AGA and the American College of Physicians (ACP). Dr. Szabo serves on advisory boards of several federal agencies and leading academic institutions. Dr. Szabo served on the Governing Board and as President of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD) in 2015 and she the inaugural Editor-in-Chief of Hepatology Communications.
Frank Tacke was originally educated at the medical school in Hannover, Germany, and Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX. Later he stayed at University of Texas, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, working on new gene therapy strategies (1998-1999) as well as for a post-doctoral research…
He is board-certified in Internal Medicine, Gastroenterology and Critical Care Medicine. His research interests are: Clinical and Experimental Hepatology, Liver Immunology, Viral Hepatitis, Gastroenterology, Critical Care Medicine, and Monocyte/Macrophage Biology. In 2012, Frank Tacke was appointed as an Associate Professor (W2-professorship) at the RWTH University Aachen. He has (co‑)authored >180 peer-reviewed original and review articles.
Vincent Wong is a professor and head of the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. He graduated from the same university and received his specialist training under Professor Joseph Sung and Professor Henry Chan at the Prince of Wales Hospital, Hong…