Professor of Medicine
University of Leuven
Department of Gastroenterology
University Hospital Gasthuisberg
Leuven, Belgium

Gert Van Assche obtained a bachelor degree in Philosophy in 1988 and Medical degree (MD) in 1992 from the University of Leuven, Belgium. He trained in Internal Medicine and Gastroenterology in Leuven and was Board certified in 2000. From 1994 until 1998 he combined his clinical training with a PhD doctoral program on regulatory peptides in motility and inflammation in the GI Hormones lab in Leuven and in the Intestinal Diseases Research Program at McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada. For his research he received grants and awards from the Foundation for Scientific Research (FWO Vlaanderen), from the Desiré Collen Research Foundation, from the Royal Society of Medicine and from the Inbev-Baillet-Latour Foundation.

Dr Van Assche is a Gastroenterologist in Mount Sinai Hospital/ University Health Network, Toronto, Ontario, and is Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto and at the University of Leuven with research focus on novel therapies in IBD, fibrogenesis and mucosal immunology in IBD. His scientific work has resulted in author or co-authorship on more than 120 peer-reviewed papers. Gert Van Assche holds a Basic-Clinical Research position at the Flemish Foundation for Scientific Research (FWO Vlaanderen).