Dr. Antonio Ettore Pontiroli, MD, Full Professor of Internal Medicine, currently holds the following positions: (a) Head, Chair of Internal Medicine, Department of Scienze della Salute, Università degli studi di Milano; and (b) Head, Divisione di Medicina Interna 2, Ospedale san Paolo, Milano. His fields of research involve genetics, pathophysiology, and treatment of type 2 diabetes and obesity. He, as an author, has been involved in publication of more than 310 full papers in various peer-review journals. Furthermore, he has given approximately 190 lectures at national/international meetings, and is a referee of 25 international journals.

Dr. Noori Akhtar-Danesh, B.Sc. (Ferdowsi), M.Sc. (Shiraz), Ph.D. (Newcastle), is a biostatistician and his research interests include survival analysis (including analysis of recurrent data and competing risks), relative survival analysis, modeling risk factors of obesity and depression, meta-analysis, Q-methodology (a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods for the study of subjectivity), and tool (questionnaire) development. He is currently Associate Professor in the School of Nursing, Faculty of Health Sciences, at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Dr. Akhtar-Danesh, as an author/co-author, has published over 100 articles in various journals, having total number of citations of around 1,720.

I am a physician epidemiologist, and Associate Professor at the Department of Population Health Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison. My main research is focused in the epidemiology of cardiovascular diseases, particularly in the identification of risk factors for hypertension and barriers for hypertension control. I am the principal investigator of INEFAC, one of the few ongoing cohort studies on cardiovascular diseases in Latin America. I am currently the leader and Pl of the consortium of Latin American Studies of Obesity (LASO), a share-data initiative with information on cardiovascular risk factors in >30,000 adults from 11 Latin American countries.

Dr. Emmanuel Bourdon obtained his Ph.D. degree (2000) in Biochemistry from Dijon, France, and he has been actively involved in research on the molecular aspects of diabetes and obesity. In 2004, he got a permanent position as researcher and professor at the Université de la Réunion (La Réunion, France). Since 2004, Dr. Bourdon has lead a working group on interactions between oxidative stress and cellular pathophysiology in diabetes and obesity context. He is the author/co-author of more than 60 peer-reviewed publications in that field of research. He has developed productive local and international collaborations, especially with the local hospital (CHU, La Réunion) and with the groups of Pr. Faadiel Essop (Stellenbosch, South Africa) and Pr. Theeshan Bahorun (Réduit, Maurice).

Dr. Can graduated from University of Istanbul, Istanbul Faculty of Medicine in 1989. He completed his Internal Medicine Residency in Cabrini Medical Center in New York City between 1991 and 1994. He completed his Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism Fellowship at Weill Cornell Medicine between 1994 and 1996. He became an Associate Professor in 2000 and Professor in 2013. He has 20 publications, chronologically in the following areas, 5 alpha reductase deficiency, definition of the metabolic syndrome and its prevalence, low carbohydrate diets, thyroid fine needle aspiration biopsy, leptin and gallstones. He works in Arnot-Ogden Medical Center, Elmira, New York, USA.

Dr. Cardinali got his MD and Ph degrees (Biological Sciences) at the University del Salvador, Buenos Aires. Since 1973 he is Research Career Awardee of the Argentine National Research Council, being promoted to its highest stage (Superior Investigator) in 1992. From 1986 to 2008 he was Professor of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Buenos Aires, being nominated as Professor Emeritus in 2010. Since 2009 he is Director of Teaching & Research, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Pontificia Universidad Católica Argentina, Buenos Aires.

Dr. Chong-Chi Chiu graduated from College of Medicine of National Taiwan University in 1999 and obtained a degree of EMBA at College of Business of the University of Texas at Arlington in USA in 2007. He is an Associate Professor in Taiwan. His specialty and research interest is bariatric surgery. He works in Chi Mei Medical Center in Taiwan and is also a table instructor of Asian Institute of Telesurgery (IRCAD Taiwan). He has published more than eighty papers on his research subjects. Moreover, he works as an editorial board member for several international medical journals.

Giuseppe Currò was nominated a permanent professorship at Faculty of Medicine where he initiated a laboratory of experimental surgery. Over the last 10 years, he has focused his scientific interests on the topics related to hepato-biliary-pancreatic and metabolic disorders including cancer diseases. With his expertise in hepato-biliary-pancreatic and bariatric surgery research, he has established a series of platforms for clinical evaluation of therapeutics in liver/pancreas tumors and obesity with its comorbidities, published numerous SCI journal papers, edited/reviewed for many academic journals, worked as a guest professor in many universities and institutes.

Mervyn Deitel was born in Toronto Canada in 1936. He graduated in Medicine from the University of Toronto in 1961. He trained in surgery at Beth Israel, Bellevue and N.Y. University Hospitals in New York, Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo and trauma at Parkland Memorial in Dallas. He started bariatric surgery in Canada in 1970 with JI-bypass, later gastroplasties and RYGB (personally performed 2,850 bariatric operations), and was a Past Professor of Surgery and of Nutritional Sciences, U. of Toronto. Dr. Deitel founded the OBESITY SURGERY Journal in 1991 and was the Editor-in-Chief 1991-2008. He was one of the 13 Founding Members of IFSO (Stockholm) 1995, and served as the First Executive Director of IFSO 1996–2001. He was awarded the IFSO golden pin in 1997 and IFSO Honorary Life Membership in 2003. He served on the Editorial Board of Journal of American College of Nutrition and 6 other journals, and is an advisor in nutrition to the American Journal of Family Practice. He is Chief Advisor to the International Bariatric Club.

I has been born in Madrid, I got my Biochemistry degree in The Autonoma University in Madrid, Spain in 1975. I got my PHD with a desitation on the study of an experimental model of hyperprolactinemia, that received a Sobresaliente CUM LAUDE, in the same University. In 1979, I was given a Profesor No NUmerario position.In !980 I was move to a Profesor Ciontratdo position. In 1981 I got an Associate Professor Position through a national competition and finally in 2004 Iwas prometed to a Professor Position. Place in which I do research and teaching in the department before mentiones at the Complutense UNiversity. Durig this period I have published more that 300 paper in beteen reaearh paper, reviews and charpters in books.

Dr. Yoshifumi Saisho obtained his Ph.D. degree (2009) from the Keio University School of Medicine in Tokyo. Since Apr 2009, Dr. Saisho is Assistant Professor in the Division of Nephrology, Endocrinology and Metabolism, Department of Internal Medicine, Keio University School of Medicine. He has served as chief resident in the Department of Internal Medicine at Shizuoka City Shimizu Hospital in Shizuoka and at Hiratsuka Municipal Hospital in Hiratsuka, Japan. His area of interest is Diabetology, especially beta cell dysfunction in diabetes. Dr. Saisho is an author/co-author of more than 75 publications, having total number of citations of around 1,320.