Scientific Advisors

Dr. Panaccione is a Professor of Medicine and the Director of the Inflammatory Bowel Disease Unit at the University of Calgary. He also serves as the Dean of MD Admissions and Director of the IBD Fellowship Program. He has been honored with the Crohn’s Colitis Canada Endowed Research Chair in Inflammatory Bowel Disease at the University of Calgary.

He is the 2020 Crohn’s Colitis Canada Outstanding Physician of the Year and has been recently recognized as a 2020-22 Clarivate Research Scholar for being cited in the top 1% of researchers cited in the world. He has co-authored over 350 manuscripts, 7 book chapters, and 426 abstracts including publications in journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, JAMA, Nature, and Annals of Internal Medicine.

He is a founding member of the Crohn’s Colitis Canada PACE initiative ( 5 million dollar grant) Dr. Panaccione is the principal investigator on several studies evaluating the efficacy and safety of new agents in subjects of Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. His special interest lies in the fields of advanced therapies, biological therapy, and delivery of care. He is a recognized authority on IBD therapeutics and has co-authored numerous guidelines for the Canadian Association of Gastroenterology. He actively participates in clinical trials of new therapeutic agents for Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.  He reviews for prestigious journals including NEJM, Lancet, Gastroenterology, and Gut.

Geert D’Haens graduated from medical school at the Katholieke Universiteirt Leuven, Belgium in 1987.

Professor D’Haens specialized in gastroenterology at the University of Chicago Hospitals, USA and University Hospitals Leuven in 1990-1992. He was board certified in internal medicine in 1992. He defended his Doctoral Thesis in 1996. Currently Professor of Medicine and Gastroenterology at the Academic Medical Centre, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands, Professor D’Haens is a specialist gastroenterologist with a clinical interest in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and gastrointestinal oncology. He has particular expertise in mucosal immunology, gastrointestinal endoscopy and immunosuppression related to IBD.

Professor D’Haens was elected to the International Organization for Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IOIBD) in 2003 and is currently Chairman of the organization. In 1999, D’Haens was co-founder of the European Crohn’s and Colitis Organization (ECCO).

He is a member of other societies including a Fellowship of the American Gastroenterological Association (2006) and the European Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy Research Committee.

Professor D’Haens is the recipient of several awards including the “Silver Medal for Inflammatory Bowel Disease” from the World Congress on Gastroenterology, Vienna, 1998.

With over 250 peer reviewed scientific articles and 37 chapters in medical textbooks, Professor D’Haens has an impressive publication record and is widely recognized as an expert in the area of digestive diseases.

Dr. Feagan completed a medical degree at the University of Western Ontario (UWO) in London, Ontario, Canada.

His postdoctoral training included a residency in Internal Medicine and a clinical fellowship in Gastroenterology in the Department of Medicine at UWO, and postgraduate training in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario. A Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, Dr. Feagan holds membership in the Canadian and American Association of Gastroenterology, the American College of Gastroenterology, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, Crohn’s and Colitis Canada (CCC) and European Crohn’s and Colitis Organization (ECCO). He has authored over 480 articles and book chapters and has given over 600 invited presentations at national and international scientific meetings. In 1997, Dr. Feagan became Director of Robarts Clinical Trials at the Robarts Research Institute, University of Western Ontario and in 2020, he became Senior Scientific Director of Alimentiv Inc.(formerly Robarts Clinical Trials) His research efforts focus on the design and implementation of randomized controlled trials of therapy for inflammatory bowel disease. He has been the principal investigator on numerous large-scale randomized clinical trials.

Bruce Sands, MD, MS, is the Dr. Burrill B. Crohn Professor of Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY. Dr. Sands was awarded his BA and MD from Boston University, and trained in internal medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. After completing GI fellowship at the Massachusetts General Hospital, he joined the faculty of Harvard Medical School and served as the Acting Chief of the Gastrointestinal Unit at MGH before moving to Mount Sinai in 2010 as Chief of the Dr. Henry D. Janowitz Division of Gastroenterology.

Dr. Sands is widely recognized for his clinical investigations of new therapeutics for the inflammatory bowel diseases and has published over 275 original manuscripts. He was the lead investigator of the landmark studies ACCENT 2, UNIFI and VARSITY, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, and SEAVUE, published in the Lancet.