Suzanne Gisbertz finished medical school at the AMC, University of Amsterdam in 2002. She did her surgical training at UMCU, Utrecht University and St. Antonius Hospital, Nieuwegein until 2010 and her advanced gastro-intestinal and minimally invasive surgical training at VUmc, Amsterdam until 2012. She got her doctorate (PhD) in 2009. She is currently a consultant upper-GI surgeon and principal investigator at the Amsterdam UMC, University of Amsterdam in Amsterdam. She has been proctoring minimally invasive esophagectomies and gastrectomies at different centers in the Netherlands and abroad. Her main research topics are lymph node metastases and extent of lymphadenectomy in esophageal and gastric cancer, minimally invasive upper GI surgery and postoperative outcome, quality of life following upper GI surgery and surgical techniques (e.g. omentectomy vs omentumpreservation in gastrectomy, transhiatal versus transthoracic esophagectomy). She is board member of the Dutch Society for Gastro-Intestinal Surgery (NVGIC) and of the European Society for Diseases of the Esophagus (ESDE). She is also a member of several other committees and guideline committees, both nationally and internationally.

Prof Leong has made a substantial contribution to research with over 150 high quality scientific journals publications. Amongst these are senior authorship of national and international consensus guidelines in Australia and in the Asia-Pacific region. His service includes executive positions in the Research Committee of the Gastroenterological Society of Australia and section editor of the Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology. He is an executive member of a number of government bodies including the Agency for Clinical Innovation of NSW Health nominated for expertise in IBD and the Cancer Council of Australia Working Party on the revision of the clinical practice guidelines for the prevention, early detection and management of colorectal cancer. Professor Leong was awarded the American Gastroenterological Association Fellowship by invitation on the basis of research excellence in 2012 and the UNSW Paper of the Year Prize in 2015.

Raj Nair is currently employed as a Consultant Vascular Surgeon at Sheffield Teachings Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and as an Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer at the University of Sheffield, England. He is proudly South African by birth and grew up and was educated in and around Durban before undertaking his undergraduate medical training at the University of Natal Medical School. After completion of his basic medical training, he went directly into specialist training within the Department of Surgery at the University of Natal. He completed his surgical training  and obtained Fellowship of the College of Surgeons in 1995, and was the first Black recipient of the Douglas Award in doing so.

Raj was appointed as Consultant General Surgeon in Durban in 1996 while he undertook further vascular training under the guidance of Professor John Robbs and Mr Talib Abdool-Carrim, as well as a year of training in Bournemouth, England as a Visiting Senior Registrar. After achieving vascular surgery specialist registration, he worked as a Senior Consultant as part of the Metropolitan Vascular Unit in Durban till the end of the millennium. During this time, he was an active member of VASSA and contributed extensively to the academic programme of the Society. His initial research interests and publications related to vascular trauma and thoracic outlet surgery but the focus then changed to vascular disease related to the HIV epidemic facing the country at the time. Together with colleagues at the Metropolitan Vascular Unit, he published several of the original clinical series describing HIV-related aneurysms in high-impact journals as well as the first reports of occlusive disease attributed to HIV. In collaboration with colleagues in Clinical Pathology, detailed reports of histological features of HIV vasculopathy were described in leading pathology journals.

For personal reasons, Raj moved to England in 2001 and has been a Consultant Vascular Surgeon in the NHS since. His practice includes a full range of arterial and venous surgery. Additionally, he has been heavily involved in clinical governance and management including having been Clinical Director for Vascular Services at one of the largest vascular units in the country for over 8 years.

Professor dr. Mark I. van Berge Henegouwen is chair of the upper GI unit at the Amsterdam University Medical Centers, chair of the Dutch Upper GI Cancer Audit and chair of the Dutch society of foregut surgeons of the Netherlands. He was appointed professor of Gastrointestinal Surgery in 2017 at the University of Amsterdam.

Mark van Berge Henegouwen, born and raised in the Netherlands, received his MD and PhD at the University of Amsterdam. He performed his fellowship in gastrointestinal and minimally invasive surgery at the Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam where he started as senior consultant in 2006.

Mark van Berge Henegouwen’ s clinical practice is dedicated to patients with malignancies of the esophagus and stomach. The Amsterdam UMC is currently one of the largest centers for esophageal and gastric cancer in Europe. The Amsterdam UMC is a tertiary referral center for these patients with around 250 esophago-gastric resections annually. Mark van Berge Henegouwen has introduced minimally invasive surgery for esophageal and gastric cancer at his center in 2009 and now around 90 percent of patients is treated thoraco-laparoscopically or robotically.

Mark van Berge Henegouwen is a Principal Investigator in upper GI cancer Surgery and main research activities are focused on improvement of outcomes in upper GI cancer surgery, outcomes and centralization in the Dutch Upper GI Cancer Audit, improvement of (minimally invasive) techniques, neoadjuvant treatment regimens in esophageal and gastric cancer and quality of life in upper GI cancer surgery.