Editorial Team

Professor David C. Whitcomb MD PhD is a pioneer in the use of mathematics, genetics, neurosciences, immunology, epidemiology and clinical sciences to study complex inflammation disorders and cancer risks with a focus on the pancreas. He served as Chief, Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition at the University of Pittsburgh from 1999 to 2016, building it into a top-tier Gastroenterology program. With >25 years of continuous NIH funding, he built one of the top human genetic programs for complex digestive diseases. He has published over 400 papers, reviews and book chapters with >40,000 citations, an h-index of >100 and i10index of >300.

Prof. Whitcomb completed a doctorate in physiology (PhD, 1983) and a medical degree (MD, 1985) at Ohio State University. Postdoctoral training at Duke University included medical residency, gastroenterology fellowship and postdoctoral training under Ian Taylor MD PhD. Dr. Whitcomb joined the faculty of the University of Pittsburgh and UPMC as a physician-scientists in 1991 through 2022. He held the Giant Eagle Foundation Professor of Cancer Genetics (endowed chair), Professor of Medicine (with tenure), Professor of Cell Biology & Molecular Physiology, and Professor of Human Genetics until December 2023 (now Emeritus). He is also Adjunct Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA USA and Christian Medical College, Vellore, India. His is cofounder of Ariel Precision Medicine Inc. and SMART-MD Publishing LLC. He continues to serve as a consultant for multiple organizations.

Dr. Melena Bellin is a physician-scientist and tenured Professor in the Department of Pediatrics, Division of Endocrinology, and the Department of Surgery at the University of Minnesota. Her research focuses on cell therapy for patients with type 1 diabetes and surgical diabetes. She has been an innovator in the field of total pancreatectomy with islet autotransplantation (TPIAT), including leading 4 randomized clinical trials of novel therapies to improve islet engraftment after TPIAT, defining long-term outcomes after TPIAT, and developing TPIAT as an important therapy for children with hereditary pancreatitis. She has been the PI on 4-R01 and 2- U01 grants focused on TPIAT or pancreatitis. She has also been an Investigator in multiple clinical trials of alloislet transplantation for type 1 diabetes, including the Clinical Islet Transplant Consortium studies, and in novel phase I/II studies of stem cell-derived islet products. She Co-Chairs the Type 1 Diabetes Acute Pancreatitis Consortium (T1DAPC). She has approximately 200 peer-reviewed publications in the field.

Website (TPIAT): https://tpiat.umn.edu
Study websites:
POST: www.tpiat.study
T1DAPC: http://t1dapc.net
CPDPC: https://cpdpc.mdanderson.org
CITR: https://www.citregistry.org

Dr. Brand is a Professor of Medicine and Human Genetics and Director of the GI Malignancy Early Detection, Diagnosis and Prevention Program at the University of Pittsburgh and leads the UPMC’s Hereditary GI Tumor Clinic. Dr. Brand participates in multiple NCI-, NIH- and DoD-funded research projects focused on the early detection of pancreatic cancer, including being a principal investigator in the Early Detection Research Network and Pancreatic Cancer Detection Consortium. His work is aimed at finding new tests to incorporate into early detection strategies cancer and the identification of high-risk individuals who would benefit from pancreatic cancer screening.

Dr. Erin E. Kershaw is currently an Associate Professor of Medicine and Endowed Chair for Obesity and Diabetes Research at the University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA. Dr. Kershaw’s clinical interests focus on disorders of “fat,” including the following core areas: 1) obesity and the metabolic syndrome, 2) lipodystrophies, lipomatoses, and other rare adipose tissue disorders, and 3) dyslipidemias. Dr. Kershaw is board certified in Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism (American Board of Internal Medicine), Obesity Medicine (American Board of Obesity Medicine), and Clinical Lipidology (American Board of Clinical Lipidology). In addition to her clinical expertise, Dr. Kershaw runs an externally-funded translational research program focused on defining mechanisms by which lipids and steroids contributes to normal metabolism and disease including the following: 1) lipid homeostasis, metabolism, and signaling, 2) adipocyte biology, 3) adipocyte-secreted factors and their relationship to systemic metabolism, and 4) novel genes/loci linked to metabolic phenotypes in humans. Her work has been funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), the American Diabetes Association (ADA), and the National Institutes of Health. She has also contributed to recent clinical trials related to novel therapies for severe hypertriglyceridemia and cardiometabolic disease. Dr. Kershaw has held several academic leadership and educational roles including Chief of the Division of Endocrinology, Co-Director of the Medicine Translational Research Center, Director of the Endocrinology Clinical Trials Program, and Associated Program Director for Research for the Clinical and Research (T32) Fellowship Programs in Endocrinology. Her national service includes serving as a member and Chair of NIH Study Section (NIH/NIDDK DDK-B). Thus, Dr. Kershaw has expertise in clinical care, research, education, and leadership in the field of Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism with specific expertise in lipidology.

Website (Univ. Pittsburgh)

Dr. Wasan is the Vice Chair for Pain Medicine in the Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) and a Tenured Professor of Anesthesiology and Psychiatry in the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. He is also the Co-Director for the Center for Innovation in Pain Care at the University of Pittsburgh and a Past President of the American Academy of Pain Medicine. Dr. Wasan is board certified in Pain Medicine and completed fellowship training in Pain Medicine at Mass General-Brigham and Harvard Medical School in Boston. He is also board certified in Psychiatry and completed a Psychiatry residency at Johns Hopkins.

Dr. Wasan oversees 15 pain clinics in the UPMC system, 20 Pain Medicine faculty, and all research within the Pain Medicine Division. He is also Chair of the Pain Medicine Steering Committee which is a system-wide initiative to improve pain care across the UPMC integrated health delivery network composed of 40 hospitals.

Dr. Wasan’s research is funded from a variety of sources, such as NIH and industry funds. He has over 200 research publications and is a co-author on many treatment guidelines. Dr. Wasan’s diverse research interests include medical informatics of pain treatment outcomes using real world evidence, pain clinical trials, psychosocial pain research, and translational pain studies using modalities such as quantitative sensory testing and functional neuroimaging.

Dr. Wasan has received the Distinguished Service Award and the Founder’s Award from the American Academy of Pain Medicine for excellence and innovation in the field.

Prof. Mel Wilcox MD is an internationally recognized physicians and academician. Dr. Wilcox served for 20 years as the division director of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at the University of Alabama at a time when that program consistently was ranked among the nation’s top 50 by U.S. News and World Report. He is chair of the United States Pancreas Study Group, a conglomerate of top academic programs across the country that will be developed to conduct multicenter clinical trials and develop guidelines and pathways for care of patients with pancreatic diseases. An active researcher, Dr. Wilcox was principal investigator for a National Institutes of Health (NIH) Pancreatic Cancer SPORE grant. He also was a co-PI and recipient of several grants from the NIH and its National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK). Dr. Wilcox has authored more than 75 textbook chapters, 400 publications that include the New England Journal of Medicine, 750 scientific abstracts and Digestive Diseases Self-Evaluation Program (DDSEP) and Gastrointestinal Endoscopy Self-Assessment Program (GESAP) reviews. He was an associate editor of the American Journal of Medicine and reviews for more than 100 peer-reviewed journals. He is one of the incoming editors-in-chief of the popular gastroenterology and hepatology textbook Sleisenger and Fordtran. He was formerly editor-in-chief of Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology and founding editor of Techniques in Gastrointestinal Endoscopy. Dr. Wilcox has served in leadership positions for several professional organizations, including secretary, councilor, board member and chair of consensus conferences to the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA), chair of the Postgraduate Education Committee of the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE), president of the Southern Medical Association and president of the Southern Society for Clinical Investigation..

Areas of expertise include in order of descending academic and clinical expertise (the clinical expertise really does not fall off that much): early chronic pancreatitis, diagnosis and management of pancreatic exocrine insufficiency, acute relapsing pancreatitis, acute pancreatitis, pancreatic cystic lesions, neuroendocrine tumors of the GI tract, hypertriglyceridemia , endoscopic ultrasound, endoscopic mucosal resection, difficult colonoscopy, high risk colonoscopies, duodenal adenomas, ERCP, endoscopic and clinical quality, interval Gi lesions after colonoscopy and endoscopy, endoscopic morbidity and mortality, Barretts radiofrequency ablation and cryoablation, gastric and colonic dysplasia and DALMs, difficult GI tract strictures, necrosectomy, GI tract perforations, noninvasive CRC screening, deep enteroscopy, capsule endoscopy, genetic gastroenterology, GI manifestations of cystic fibrosis, endoluminal prosthetics, GI oncology, GIST and other subepithelial tumors, endohepatology, GI bleeding, irritable bowel syndrome, abdominal pain of unclear etiology, personalized/precision medicine, cyclic nausea/vomiting syndrome, inflammatory bowel disease, EoE, celiac disease, veterans health care.

Dr. Yasmin Hernandez-Barco, MD is board-certified gastroenterologist who specializes in diseases of the pancreas. She serves as the Medical Pancreatologist for the Division of Gastroenterology at Massachusetts General Hospital with a clinical focus on caring for patients with acute pancreatitis, chronic pancreatitis, pancreatitis of unknown etiology, exocrine pancreatic insufficiency, pancreatic cysts, and pancreatic cancer. Dr. Hernandez-Barco is a physician-scientist and studies the immunobiology of pancreatic cancer precursor lesions and the role of the immune system in malignant progression of pancreatic cancer. She is actively involved in research which includes developing technologies for the early detection of pancreatic cancer and pancreatic cysts and developing clinical diagnostic tools in the management of various subtypes of pancreatitis.

Prior to starting clinical practice in 2012, Dr. Hernandez-Barco received her medical degree from SUNY Stony Brook School of Medicine where she was inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha and Gold Humanism Honors Societies and awarded the Glasgow-Rubin Citation for academic achievement. She completed her residency and chief residency at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Dr. Hernandez-Barco completed her Gastroenterology and Hepatology Fellowship in the Division of Gastroenterology at MGH. She completed an additional year of advanced fellowship training in Medical Pancreatology at MGH and Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

She is an active member of the multidisciplinary Pancreatic Cyst Clinic at MGH. As a testament to her commitment to patients with pancreatic disorders, she was appointed as the director for the MGH Pancreas Program and has recently launched a Multidisciplinary Complicated Pancreatitis center for patients with chronic and necrotizing pancreatitis.

In addition to these local efforts, she is actively involved in gastroenterology and pancreatic professional societies, and serves on several national committees including the American College of Gastroenterology’s (ACG) Food and Drug Administration Related Matters Committee, ACG Technology and Innovation Committee, AGA Pancreatic Council, ACG Educational Committee, ACG Young Physician Scholar Program Steering Committee and associated editor for Clinical and Translational Gastroenterology. Lastly, she is a participant of the Consortium for the study of Pancreatitis, Diabetes and Pancreatic Cancer which is a national consortium to advance the study of pancreatic diseases.

Biosketch will be uploaded soon.