What is our Future? AI is Coming for Gastroenterology

Join us at the Royal College of Physicians for an exciting event where experts will discuss the impact of artificial intelligence on gastrointestinal medicine and hepatology services. Discover how AI is transforming the way we diagnose and treat digestive disorders.

Don't miss this opportunity to network with professionals in the field and gain insights into the future of GI medicine. Register now to secure your spot!

SPEAKER DETAILS

Prof Laurence Lovat

Professor of Gastroenterology & Biophotonics, UCL.

Prof. Lovat served as the Clinical Director of the Wellcome/EPSRC Centre for Interventional and Surgical Sciences (WEISS) Centre at UCL from 2018 to 2024, where he fostered collaboration between interventional clinicians and engineers to accelerate the translation of cutting-edge technologies into clinical practice. Over the past 7 years, he has spearheaded research on Artificial Intelligence Endoscopy in partnership with UCL computer scientists, fostering international collaborations and mentoring numerous clinical and engineering PhD students. A co-founder of Odin Vision, which was acquired by Olympus UK & Ireland in 2022, he continues to provide consultancy to the company. Prof. Lovat also chairs the BSG AI Task Force.

Prof Mihaela van der Schaar

Mihaela van der Schaar is the John Humphrey Plummer Professor of Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence and Medicine at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow at The Alan Turing Institute in London. In addition to leading the van der Schaar Lab, Mihaela is founder and director of the Cambridge Centre for AI in Medicine.

Prof Colin Rees

Professor of Gastroenterology, Newcastle University.

Prof. Rees is the president of the British Society of Gastroenterology. He is a National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Senior Investigator and a leading expert in endoscopy and colorectal cancer (CRC) research. Prof. Rees has recruiting over 15,000 patients to a range of endoscopy and colorectal cancer studies. His research interests in endoscopy and colorectal cancer screening, prevention and early diagnosis, led him to develop COLO-SPEED, the world’s largest colorectal cancer research group, and lead a diverse programme of associated studies.

Prof Anjan Dhar

Professor of Gastroenterology, Durham University and Consultant at County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust.

Prof Dhar trained in inflammatory bowel disease and advanced therapeutic endoscopy and colonoscopy in India and subsequently at the University of Oxford and University College London. He has held BSG International Fellowships at the Medical University of South Carolina USA and Tokyo Japan for early GI cancer diagnosis and endoscopic treatment. He has research interests in new technologies for endoscopic diagnosis and treatment

Dr Aamir Ahmad

Consultant Gastroenterologist, St Mark’s Hospital, London

Dr Ahmad is an endoscopist with a particular interest in complex polypectomy, optical and AI-assisted diagnosis and advancing colonoscopy practice. His PhD at Imperial College London involved a portfolio of research exploring “Efficiency in Colonoscopy” throughout the patient pathway under primary supervision of Professor Brian Saunders. Findings from DISCARD3, a major study he led exploring optical diagnosis with a “resect and discard” strategy, are now being adopted nationally. As an expert advisor and committee member he is supporting implementation of optical diagnosis within the NHS England Bowel Cancer Screening Programme.

Prof Pradeep Bhandari

Professor of Gastroenterology at University of Portsmouth

Prof. Bhandari has authored more than 200 peer-reviewed publications and several International and national Guidelines as well as book chapters. He has received several awards in the field of endoscopy including the BSG Hopkins Endoscopy Prize, the RCP Edinburgh Barbour Freeland Award, and the Crystal Awards (ASGE). He sits on the BSG Endoscopy Committee, and UEG Research Committee, specialist advisor to NICE, and is the current chair of the ESGE Research Committee.

Dr Omer Ahmad

Consultant Gastroenterologist and Interventional Endoscopist, UCLH, London

Dr Ahmad has a specialist interest in early endoscopic detection and resection of cancer in the gastrointestinal tract. He is a Senior Clinical Research Fellow at the UCL WEISS centre and part of the Surgical Robot Vision Research Group. He was awarded the A.J. Clark Prize at UCL for the best overall undergraduate performance. He was subsequently awarded the young clinical and translational scientist of the year by the BSG. His research focuses on the clinical translation of artificial intelligence in endoscopy and gastroenterology. He serves as an expert member on AI working groups for international endoscopy societies and is co-editor for the reference textbook ‘AI in Clinical Medicine’

Prof Charlie Lees

Professor of Gastroenterology at the University of Edinburgh and consultant gastroenterologist at the Western General Hospital, Edinburgh.

Prof Lees was awarded the prestigious ASNEMGE (now UEG) European Rising Star in Gastroenterology Award in 2009. His major clinical, research and teaching interest is inflammatory bowel disease, at the translational interface between basic science and direct clinical application. He was the Chief Investigator of the PREdiCCt study which aims to discover the cause of disease flares in Crohn’s disease and UC, in the process identifying prognostic factors and modifiable environmental and microbial elements that can be targeted in future interventional studies. He is also the UK chief investigator of the GEM study (www.gemproject.ca; a $20m cohort study investigating the underlying cause of Crohn’s disease. He runs a series of international teaching activities for gastroenterologists.

Dr Tim Cross

Consultant Hepatologist, Liver Medicine Department at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital.

Dr Cross is the president of the British Association for the Study of the Liver (BASL). He qualified from St. Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical School, trained in liver medicine and transplantation at Addenbrookes hospital, Cambridge; The Royal Free Hospital, London and Kings College Hospital Liver unit, where he undertook clinical research into assessment of liver fibrosis including work with fibroscan when it was in its infancy. He has published more than 100 peer reviewed abstracts and papers.

Prof Florian Markowetz

Professor of Computational Oncology at the University of Cambridge and Senior Group Leader at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute.

Prof Markowetz received a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award and a CRUK Future Leader in Cancer Research prize. He holds degrees in Mathematics (Dipl. math.) and Philosophy (M.A.) from the University of Heidelberg and a Dr. rer. nat. in Computational Biology from Free University Berlin, for which he was awarded an Otto-Hahn Medal by the Max Planck Society. He is a co-founder and director at Tailor Bio, a genomics start-up developing a pan-cancer precision medicine platform. He has also been involved in the development of the Cytosponge, a ‘sponge on a string’ to collect cells from the oesophagus to test for Barrett’s oesophagus.

Prof Shaji Sebastian

Consultant Physician and Gastroenterologis at Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust and Honorary Professor at the Hull York Medical School

Prof Sebastian is the gastroenterology LCRN speciality co-lead at the National Institute for Health Research and is a member of the Clinicom board of the European Crohn’s and Colitis Organisation (ECCO).

Host or Publisher Professor Laurence Lovat