Scientific Advisory Board
Greg Enns, M.B., Ch.B
Dr. Enns is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics and has been Director of the Biochemical Genetics Program at Stanford University since 1998. He was trained in clinical genetics and clinical biochemical genetics at the University of California, San Francisco, graduating from the program in 1998. Dr. Enns has also directed the California Department of Health Services Newborn Screening Area Service Center for Northern California since 2003. He is on the Board of Directors of the Society for Inherited Metabolic Disease. As a clinician, he cares for patients who have a broad range of metabolic disorders and focuses on diagnosing and managing those with urea cycle defects, aminoacidemias, organic acidemias, mitochondrial disorders, and lysosomal storage disorders. His current research involves the development of a panel of sensitive blood biomarkers of redox imbalance, using tandem mass spectrometry and Hi-D FACS, so that patients who have mitochondrial dysfunction can be detected and monitored non-invasively. He is most interested in developing clinical trials for patients with metabolic disorders, and has a particular interest in novel therapeutics, including stem cells, enzyme replacement therapy, molecular chaperones, and alternative pathway therapy. Dr. Enns was the lead author on a May 2007 New England Journal of Medicine article summarizing the label-enabling study of intravenous sodium phenylbutyrate and sodium benzoate in patients with urea cycle disorders.
D. Montgomery Bissell, M.D.
Dr. D. Montgomery Bissell is chief of Gastroenterology at UCSF Medical Center and has a career-long interest in liver disease, dating to when he conducted a project on hepatocellular carcinoma in East Africa as a Harvard medical student. He then turned his attention to defining the cellular responses and molecular regulation of the scarring process known as fibrosis and cirrhosis. The latter is the most important consequence of many chronic liver diseases including inborn errors of metabolism, viral hepatitis, autoimmune states, alcohol abuse and others. It also is the setting for most cases of liver cancer.
Dr. Bissell is known internationally for basic research on fibrosis and defining new therapies to block fibrosis progression in patients. He is a member of several professional organizations including the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the Association of American Physicians, and the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD). He has served on numerous review panels for NIH, the Veterans Administration and other groups. He was a member of the AASLD governing board, 1991-1997, and President of the Association in 1995. From 1997 to 2001, he was editor-in-chief of Hepatology, the leading journal for liver research. In 2004, Dr. Bissell received the AASLD distinguished achievement award.
Dr. Bissell received his MD from Harvard Medical School, completed a residency in Internal Medicine at Boston City Hospital and did his fellowship training in GI Research/Liver at UCSF. He joined the UCSF faculty in 1973, becoming Professor of Medicine in 1986.
Roger Williams, CBE MD, FRCP, FRCS, FRCPE, FRACP, FMedSci, FRCPI (Hon), FACP (Hon)
Professor Roger Williams’ five decade career in clinical liver disease and research has brought him an international reputation with many awards and Presidencies of both the British and European Associations for the Study of the Liver. He has published over 2,500 papers, journals and books and has served on 22 editorial boards. A citation analysis from ISI, the leading scientific information provider in the USA, shows him to be “one of the most highly cited and influential researchers in his field.”
Professor Williams’ career in hepatology began in 1959 when he was appointed Lecturer in Medicine to the Royal Free Hospital. Over the subsequent five years, his main contributions were in establishing the genetic basis of haemochromatosis, the different functional disturbances in jaundice and original studies on splenic blood flow in the genesis of portal hypertension. He worked at King’s College London from 1966 – 1996 where he established the Institute of Liver Studies and was the first Director of that Institute. In 1996 he moved to University College London where, again from scratch, he set up and directed a new Institute, the Institute of Hepatology. Professor Williams won hospital Doctor of the Year Award 1994 for Gastroenterology and the Lifetime Achievement Award of the British Association for the Study of the Liver 2003. As Honorary Consultant Physician with the UCL Hospitals NHS Trust, he has overseen a major expansion in the clinical services for liver disease within the Hospital and community.
Professor Williams is an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, Royal College of Physicians (Edinburgh), Royal Australasian College of Physicians, Amercian College of Physicians, Royal College of Physicians of Ireland and the Academy of Medical Sciences. He is also the Medical Director of the Foundation for Liver Research which he started in 1973 and which has become the leading gastroenterological charity in the UK. Professor Williams is currently serving as Director of the International Office of the Royal College of Physicians of London as well as President of the European Association for the Study of the Liver.