Scientific Advisors - IBD
Sean Colgan, PhD
Dr. Colgan is the Director of the Mucosal Inflammation Program and Vice Chairman of the Department of Medicine at the University of Colorado. Dr. Colgan’s research focuses on the identification of novel anti-inflammatory molecules associated with mucosal inflammation.
He is a leading expert in Resolvin biology in the context of mucosal inflammation. Dr. Colgan has published more than 170 original papers, served as a Section Editor for the Journal of Immunology, and is a standing member of the Gastrointestinal Mucosal Pathobiology Study Section at the NIH. He is the previous chairman of the Research Fellowship Award study section for the CCFA and presently serves as the chairman of the CCFA Senior Research Award study section.
Sean Colgan, PhD
University of Colorado Denver
Stephen Hanauer, MD
Dr. Hanauer is an internationally recognized expert on the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease. He currently serves as the medical director of the Digestive Disease Center at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and as the Clifford Joseph Barborka Professor of Medicine. After earning his medical degree from the University of Illinois, Dr. Hanauer completed his internship and residency in internal medicine followed by a fellowship in gastroenterology at the University of Chicago. There Dr. Hanauer was mentored by one of the great clinicians in American gastroenterology, the legendary Dr. Joseph B. Kirsner. Dr. Hanauer held a Professorship in Medicine at Chicago named for Dr. Kirsner.
As Chairman of the Gastrointestinal Drugs Advisory Committee at the US Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Hanauer authored the FDA’s “Guidelines for Clinical Evaluation of Drugs for Patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease”. From 2014-2015, he served as president of the American College of Gastroenterology (ACG), where he has been a member of the ACG Board of Trustees since 2006, an officer of the ACG since 2010 and a contributing committee member since 1989. He has represented the ACG at the FDA related to development of end-points for IBD in a series of “GREAT” meetings. He edited Nature Reviews Gastroenterology & Hepatology and chaired the ACG Finance Committee from 2011 to 2012. Dr. Hanauer has also held leadership positions in the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) as chair of the Sections on Infection, Immunology and Inflammatory Bowel Disease as well as Clinical Practice, and served on the AGA Governing Board as a Counselor for Clinical Research. Internationally, he is a member of the European Crohn’s and Colitis Organization (ECCO) and is a former chairman of the International Organization for IBD (IOIBD).
Dr. Hanauer was awarded the AGA Fiterman Foundation Joseph B. Kirsner Award in Gastroenterology in 2001 and the AGA Janssen Award for Clinical Excellence in GI in 2004. He is currently an Associate Editor for Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology. In addition, Dr. Hanauer has worked with the American Board of Internal Medicine serving on the Gastroenterology sub-specialty. He has also held leadership positions within the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of American and in 2011 received CCFA’s Scientific Achievement Award for Clinical Research. Over the course of his career, Hanauer has authored or co-authored hundreds of peer-reviewed journal articles, books, book chapters, monographs, and editorials.
Stephen Hanauer, MD
Northwestern Medicine
Jeffrey Hyams, MD
Dr. Hyams is one of the world’s leading experts in pediatric inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) including Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. As Head of the Division of Digestive Diseases, Hepatology, and Nutrition at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center, he has led pivotal clinical trials for therapeutic agents in IBD and directed a long-term natural history registry that has described the course of almost 2000 children newly diagnosed with IBD. Dr. Hyams is the recent recipient of a $10.4M grant from the National Institutes of Health investigating the response of children newly diagnosed with ulcerative colitis to standardized therapies. He has worked with the FDA developing endpoints for pediatric clinical trials, has published more than 250 peer reviewed articles, and is the co-editor of one of the standard pediatric digestive disease textbooks, Pediatric Gastrointestinal and Liver Disease.
Dr. Hyams was the first pediatrician to ever receive the prestigious Scientific Achievement in IBD Clinical Research Award from the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of America. He graduated from University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and conducted his residency and fellowship at Boston Children’s Hospital.
Jeffrey Hyams, MD
Connecticut Children’s
Medical Center
Josh Korzenik, MD
Dr. Joshua R. Korzenik, one of the leading IBD researchers and key opinion leaders in the country, is director of the Brigham & Women’s Hospital Crohn’s and Colitis Center and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Korzenik has been involved in IBD research and care of patients for almost 25 years, with his research focusing on 1) translational research in IBD and 2) investigating environmental influences in IBD, with a focus on their common nexus of the intestinal microbiome.
Dr. Korzenik is the author of almost 60 peer-reviewed articles and research papers. He speaks frequently at professional meetings and is an active member of many professional committees. Dr. Korzenik has been the principal investigator of over a dozen research projects, ranging from studies of diet and probiotics to international comparisons of IBD. Dr. Korzenik earned his bachelor’s degree from Harvard College in 1980 and his medical degree from Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, New York, in 1987.
He was a resident at Harvard-affiliated Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital in Boston from 1987 to 1990 and fellow in gastroenterology and clinical epidemiology at Yale University School of Medicine Hospital from 1991 to 1994. He is a longstanding member of the medical advisory committee for the New England chapter of Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America.
Josh Korzenik, MD
Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Bruce Sands, MD
Bruce Sands, MD, MS is the Dr. Burrill B. Crohn Professor of Medicine. Dr. Sands is an expert in the management of inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) and has earned an international reputation for his care of patients with complex and refractory disease. He joined Mount Sinai in 2010 as Chief of the Dr. Henry D. Janowitz Division of Gastroenterology. Prior to joining Mount Sinai, Dr. Sands was Medical Co-Director of the Crohn’s & Colitis Center at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, where he also served as the hospital’s Acting Chief of the Gastrointestinal Unit as well as Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.
A longtime advocate for the continued translational research in Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, Dr. Sands is widely recognized for his innovative treatment of IBD and for his clinical investigations of new therapeutics. He was among the first to report the efficacy of infliximab-a drug used to treat autoimmune diseases-in ulcerative colitis, a result later confirmed in large, multi-center randomized controlled trials. Dr. Sands was also principal investigator for the landmark ACCENT II study, an international project that demonstrated the efficacy of the anti-tumor necrosis factor antibody infliximab as a long-term treatment for fistulizing Crohn’s disease.
Dr. Sands’ research also explores IBD epidemiology and includes the creation of a population-based cohort of IBD in Rhode Island, a project that is funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.,
A leader in several major professional organizations, Dr. Sands has served as the chair of the Clinical Research Alliance of the Crohn’s Foundation of America, Chair of the Immunology, Microbiology and Inflammatory Bowel Disease Section of the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA), and chair of the International Organization for the Study of IBD. He is an AGA Fellow (AGAF) and a fellow of the American College of Gastroenterology (FACG). In 2006 he was named Humanitarian of the Year by the New England Chapter of the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America, and the Massachusetts General Physician Organization honored him for “Excellence in Action” in recognition of his distinguished patient care.
His work has appeared in several leading peer-reviewed journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine, Gastroenterology and Gut. Dr. Sands is also a reviewer for many prominent publications, including the New England Journal of Medicine. Dr. Sands served as an Associate Editor for the field’s leading journal, Gastroenterology, from 2011 to 2016.
Dr. Sands received his medical degree at Boston University School of Medicinein Massachusetts and completed a residency in internal medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. He then completed clinical and research fellowships at the Massachusetts General Hospital. In 2001 Dr. Sands also earned a Master of Science in Epidemiology at Harvard School of Public Health.
Bruce Sands, MD
Icahn School of Medicine
at Mount Sinai