Prof. Pierre Singer was born in 1953 in France and has completed his MD at the Louis Pasteur University of Strasbourg and his Gastroenterology board in France. He is also specialized in Intensive care (1993) and has completed fellowships in Pittsburg and in New York in the field of transplantation and clinical nutrition. He is the head of the Department of General Intensive Care and of the Institute for Nutrition Research at the Rabin Medical Center, Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tiqva (Israel) for 15 years, chairman of the Department of Anesthesia and Intensive Care at the Sackler School of Medicine (Tel Aviv University), Head of the Nutrition Committee of Clalit Health Services and Associate Professor of Anesthesia and Intensive Care.

He has published more than 125 articles and reviews, more than 20 chapters in books, has been invited to give lectures in more than 170 national and international conferences and is an opinion leader in the field of Clinical Nutrition and Intensive Care. He is the past chairman of the Israel Societies of Intensive Care and of Clinical Nutrition. He has recently been elected chairman of ESPEN (2010-2014), the European Society of Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism.

Dr. Avitzur is a Medical Director, Intestinal rehabilitation and transplantation in the Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition at the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto and an Assistant Professor in the University of Toronto, Canada since July 2009. He is a graduate of Sackler Medical School at Tel-Aviv University, and completed his pediatric residency in Schneider Children’s Medical Center of Israel. He was licensed as a Pediatric Gastroenterologist in 2005 after a dual fellowship in pediatric gastroenterology and organ transplantation at the Hospital for sick Children. Upon the completion of his fellowship he joined the Institute of Gastroenterology, Nutrition and Liver Diseases at Schneider Children’s Medical Center as a senior Pediatric Gastroenterologist.

While in Israel he led the establishment of the national pediatric small bowel transplantation program. His main research and clinical focus is pediatric intestinal failure and pediatric liver and small bowel transplantation. Dr. Avitzur published more than 20 peer-reviewed articles and presented his work in national and international scientific meetings. In addition, Dr Avitzur has worked as a medical reviewer in the Clinical Trials Division of Teva Pharmaceuticals and was involved in the development of the Copaxone, Teva’s first ethic drug.

Prof. McClave is the Director of Clinical Nutrition, Division of Gastroenterology/Hepatology, Louisville and a native of Columbus Ohio, and received his medical degree from the Ohio State University College of Medicine in 1978. After doing a residency and chief residency in medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, he went on to Tampa, Florida to do his GI fellowship under Worth Boyce at the University of South Florida. He joined the staff at the University of Louisville School of Medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology/Hepatology in July 1985. He was promoted through the ranks to full Professor of Medicine with tenure and remains on the staff to the present day.

He is the Director of Clinical Nutrition at the University of Louisville School of Medicine and Co-Director of the Nutrition Curriculum for the Introduction to Clinical Medicine Course for first and second year medical students. He is the past Chairman of the Medical Practice Section of ASPEN, served on the National Nutrition Week Planning Committee for four years, and was an Associate Editor for Nutrition in Clinical Practice for that society. He has been on the ASPEN Board of Directors for four years and is current President. He is the Vice-President for the American Board of Physician Nutrition Specialists. He was a member of the ASGE Task Force for Enteral Nutrition, and was the past Chairman of the ASGE Special Interest Group in Enteral Nutrition.

He is the author of over 180 articles, book chapters, and medical educational videotapes. His research interests and clinical expertise involve critical care nutrition and early enteral feeding, endoscopic techniques for enteral access, and indirect calorimetry.