Francisco Schlottmann received his medical degree with honors at the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina. He then completed his general surgery residency at the Hospital Alemán of Buenos Aires. After his surgical training, Dr. Schlottmann completed the Soudavar fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, focusing his research on esophageal cancer. He then did a 2-year gastrointestinal surgery fellowship at the University of North Carolina, focusing his clinical and research activities on foregut disorders. Dr. Schlottmann obtained his Master of Public Health at the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health. He also completed a 1-year Minimally Invasive and Robotic Surgery Fellowship at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He currently serves as Clinical Instructor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and as Affiliate Professor of Surgery at the Hospital Alemán of Buenos Aires with an active clinical and research interest in esophageal disorders, gastroesophageal reflux disease, obesity, esophageal cancer, and gastric cancer. Dr. Schlottmann is editor of 7 books, has published over 250 journal articles, and has written more than 60 book chapters. Lorenzo Ferri is the David S. Mulder Chair in Surgery and a Professor in the Departments of Surgery and Oncology at McGill University in Montreal Canada. He is director of the Division of Thoracic and Upper Gastrointestinal Surgery Surgery and heads the Upper Gastrointestinal Cancer Program at McGill University, one of North America’s largest and most comprehensive. Dr Ferri couples this clinical activity with an active translational and fundamental research program investigating the mechanisms of therapy resistance in gastro-esophageal adenocarcinoma and the inflammatory basis of cancer progression. He is the recipient of numerous peer review grants, including from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Canadian Cancer Society, United States Department of Defense, and a Grand Challenge from Cancer Research UK. Through this work he has identified the important role of bacterial antigens - pattern recognition proteins (TLRs and NODs) and host neutrophils/Neutrophil Extracellular Traps in propagating cancer dissemination, thus representing a new paradigm in the metastatic process. Daniela Molena received her medical degree from the University of Padova in Italy. She completed her general surgery residency at the University of Padova and at the University of Rochester Medical Center. She then completed the following fellowships: Gastrointestinal Surgery (University of California San Francisco); Minimally Invasive Surgery (University of Padova); Cardiothoracic Surgery (New York Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center); and Cardiothoracic Surgery (Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center). After completing her training, Dr. Molena was appointed as Assistant Professor at John Hopkins Medical Center. Currently, she serves as Director of Memorial Sloan Kettering’s Esophageal Program, where she strives to provide excellent and individualized care to patients and to integrate new technology and novel approaches to the Thoracic Oncology Service. Marco G. Patti was born and raised in Catania, Italy. He graduated from the University of Catania, School of Medicine in 1981. Between1983 and 1986 he did research at the University of California San Francisco, studying gastrointestinal physiology (Dr. Carlos Pellegrini and Dr. Lawrence Way). Between 1986 and 1993, he completed a Residency in General Surgery at UCSF. After completion of his residency, he did a fellowship in esophageal cancer at the Queen Mary Hospital in Hong Kong (Professor John Wong). Subsequently he practiced at the University of California San Francisco, the University of Chicago, and the University of North Carolina. Presently he is involved with mentoring in the Department of Surgery at the University of Virginia. Dr. Patti’s clinical activity focuses on foregut disorders. Over the years, he has given major contribution to the diagnosis and treatment of GERD and achalasia. Dr. Patti has published more than 300 manuscripts in peer review journals and 10 books. He has been an invited speaker more than 220 times in the US. He is Past President of the International Society for Digestive Surgery and Past President of the International Society of Surgery. He was President for the World Congress of Surgery in August 2017 in Basel, Switzerland. He has been an invited speaker in North and South America, Europe, and Asia, giving more than 160 lectures.
