Governing board and scientific committee
Board members
The board members, in collaboration with the scientific committee, are responsible for reviewing, vetting and prioritising all relevant applications for international studies. Board members serve for a period of two years.
- Department of Clinical Research, University of Southern Denmark (SDU), Odense, Denmark
- Centre for Clinical Implementation of Capsule Endoscopy (CICA), Store Adenomer Tidlige Cancere Centre (SATC-C), Svendborg, Denmark
Anastasios (a.k.a. Tassos) Koulaouzidis is Professor at SDU and CICA, Denmark and Professor (Adjunct) at PUM, Poland. He obtained his MD from the Medical School of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece) in 1995. His first Doctorate in Medicine (DM) is from the University of Edinburgh, UK; his second, a Doctorate in Philosophy (PhD), is from Lunds Universitet, Sweden. He became a Member of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (UK) in 2004 and a Fellow of the same College (2013). He is also a Fellow of the European Board of Gastroenterology (2009), and the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (2017).
Professor Koulaouzidis has published extensively on capsule endoscopy and has co-authored several relevant book chapters. He is the co-author of more than 275 PubMed-listed articles, out of which at least 160 are on capsule endoscopy. His research interests include clinical applications of capsule endoscopy, quality improvement and software diagnostics, as well as hardware innovation and concept development in capsule and minimally invasive GI endoscopy. His other interests include colonoscopy quality, colorectal cancer prevention, and microscopic colitis.
Professor Koulaouzidis is an active member of the editorial board of several specialty journals and has won several research grants.
Professor Koulaouzidis has been a member of the Governing Board, serving as General Secretary, since the foundation of the iCARE Group. He was elected President at the November 2023 General Assembly meeting.
- Royal Hallamshire Hospital, Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust and University of Sheffield, UK
Professor Reena Sidhu is a consultant gastroenterologist and honorary professor at the University of Sheffield. Her main area of interest is the small bowel, with over 150 publications. She has led a European-wide curriculum for capsule and device assisted enteroscopy for the ESGE and is in the process of formalising the same for the UK. She has also been involved in formalising accreditation for capsule endoscopy in the UK.
Awarded the Hopkins Endoscopy Prize by the BSG in 2012, the first female gastroenterologist ever to have won this award. First author of the 2008 British Society of Gastroenterology guidelines on capsule endoscopy and enteroscopy; co-author of the 2015 ESGE guidelines on small bowel endoscopy and the revised ESGE guideline 2023. She led and is the first author of the BSG & RCoA position statement on the use of propofol sedation for complex endoscopy in the UK and led the UK sedation guidelines 2024.
Professor Sidhu was the BSG education chair 2021–2023 and curated an entire new educational platform for the BSG. She is part of the UEG Research Committee and UEG NSC Committee. Professor Sidhu previously served on the iCARE Group Scientific Committee.
Professor Sidhu was elected to the Governing Board, serving as General Secretary, at the November 2023 General Assembly meeting.
- Agaplesion Bethesda Krankenhaus Bergedorf, Hamburg, Germany
Honorary Professor Martin Keuchel is Head of department of Internal Medicine at Agaplesion Bethesda Hospital, Bergedorf, Hamburg, Germany. He has a board certification in internal medicine, gastroenterology and nephrology, and a diploma in tropical medicine.
He is a fellow of the European Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ESGE), American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE), and European Board of Gastroenterology and Hepatology (EBGH) and is a member of several scientific societies. He contributed to guidelines on quality in endoscopy, GI bleeding and terminology of the German Society for Digestive and Metabolic Diseases (DGVS) and on small bowel endoscopy of the ESGE. Professor Keuchel serves on ESGE QIC working groups: the small bowel endoscopy team, endoscopy service SACRED team and the IBD endoscopy group.
He has organised multiple structured capsule endoscopy training courses, has been a faculty member of many national and international courses and was involved in development of ESGE and German small bowel endoscopy curriculum.
He is co-editor of 5 books including Video Capsule Endoscopy with Springer Nature, co-author of many book chapters and more than 80 publications in peer-reviewed journals which have generated over 3,400 citations. Professor Keuchel has been a member of the Governing Board, serving as Treasurer, since the foundation of the iCARE Group. He was re-elected Treasurer at the November 2023 General Assembly meeting.
- Gastroenterology and Endoscopy Unit, University Hospital of Parma, Italy
Pablo Cortegoso Valdivia is a gastroenterology consultant at the University Hospital of Parma, in Italy. He gained his medical degree at the University of Parma (2014), with part of his studies conducted abroad (New York University, USA and University of Caen, France). He became a board-certified gastroenterologist in 2019 with the University of Turin.
His major clinical research interests are capsule endoscopy (including non-imaging platforms) and device-assisted enteroscopy, colonic neoplastic pathology (including hereditary predisposition syndromes), and pancreas endoscopic ultrasound. He’s been collaborating with international research groups on a regular basis since 2018.
Dr. Cortegoso Valdivia is a current member of ESGE, UEG, SIED (Italian Society for Digestive Endoscopy), AIGO (Italian Association of Hospital Gastroenterologists) and serves on the website Committee of EGEUS (European Group for Endoscopic Ultrasound). He was elected to the Governing Board at the November 2023 General Assembly meeting.
- Sorbonne University, Centre for Digestive Endoscopy, Saint Antoine Hospital, APHP, Paris, France
Xavier Dray was appointed a Professor of Medicine in 2013. He is now Head of the Centre for Digestive Endoscopy at Sorbonne University, Saint Antoine University Hospital. This centre is one the most active endoscopy units in the Greater Paris University Hospitals (APHP), providing care, research and training in both conventional and interventional endoscopy. In addition, a specialist team offers after hours emergency endoscopy to over 5-million inhabitants. The unit is an official training centre of the European Society of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ESGE).
Professor Xavier Dray MD PhD, specialises in Hepatology and Gastroenterology. He has trained in medicine in Paris, and has worked as a researcher at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, MD (USA).
Professor Dray has been working since 2011 with Professor Aymeric Histace's ETIS team. Together, they have supervised several Master and PhD students, hold several patents, and have launched a startup company, all related to artificial intelligence applied to capsule endoscopy. He is the author of around 200 scientific publications in international peer-reviewed journals.
Professor Dray is a co-founder (and past President) of the international CApsule endoscopy REsearch (iCARE) group.
Scientific committee
The scientific committee, in collaboration with the board members, is responsible for reviewing, vetting and prioritising all relevant applications for international studies. Membership of the scientific committee is open to all iCARE members and has a 2-year duration. You are invited to declare an interest in serving on the committee.
- Gastroenterology Unit, Valduce Hospital, Como, Italy
Emanuele Rondonotti graduated at the University of Milan in 1999 and was board certified as gastroenterologist in 2003. In 2009, he obtained his PhD at Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. His major research interests are small bowel endoscopy (capsule endoscopy and device assisted enteroscopy), technical advances in upper and lower GI endoscopy diagnostic techniques (such as artificial intelligence) and advanced tissue resection techniques.
He’s currently a member of ESGE, SIED (Italian Society of Digestive Endoscopy) and serves on the iCARE scientific committee.
Dr. Rondonotti has published more than 130 indexed papers and participated in the development of clinical and technical guidelines. Dr. Rondonotti previously served on the iCARE Scientific Committee.
- Faculty of Medicine, University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain
- Clinica Universidad de Navarra, Pamplona, Spain
Cristina Carretero is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Medicine at University of Navarra, and a Gastroenterologist at Clinica Universidad de Navarra, Pamplona, Spain. She is an international trainer on capsule endoscopy. Her research interest is capsule endoscopy (small bowel, colon and pan-enteric) and she also has a special interest in the hereditary syndromes of digestive tumours.
Professor Carretero is a member of the scientific committee of the Spanish Society of Digestive Endoscopy and the United European Gastroenterolgy. She is part of the Quality Improvement Committee and Curricula Working group of ESGE.
Professor Carretero has co-authored three books, as well as authoring six chapters and over 50 articles in peer-reviewed journals.
- The BioRobotics Institute of Scuola Superiore Sant’ Anna, Pisa, Italy
Gastone Ciuti is Associate Professor of Bioengineering at The BioRobotics Institute of Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, leading the Healthcare Mechatronics Laboratory. He is co-author of more than 100 international peer reviewed papers on computer-integrated platforms for medical robotics and the inventor of more than 15 patents. He has been Visiting Professor at the Sorbonne University (Paris, France) and at the Beijing Institute of Technology (Beijing, China) and Visiting Student at the Vanderbilt University (Nashville, Tennessee, U.S.A) and at Imperial College London (London, UK).
He is Associate Editor of the IEEE Transaction on Biomedical Engineering (IEEE-TBME), of the IEEE Journal of Bioengineering and Health Informatics (IEEE-JBHI), and of IEEE Transaction on Medical Robotics and Bionics (IEEE-TMRB). Professor Ciuti is a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) society and Member of the Technical Committee in BioRobotics of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS).
His research interests include robot/computer-assisted platforms, such as tele-operated and autonomous magnetic-based robotic platforms for navigation, localisation and tracking of smart and innovative devices in guided and targeted minimally invasive surgical and diagnostic applications, e.g. advanced capsule endoscopy.
- Sheba Medical Center, RamatGan, Israel
- Sackler School of Medicine,Tel Aviv, Israel
Professor Abraham Eliakim MD., specialist in Internal Medicine and Gastroenterology is a professor of Medicine and head of the Gastroenterology Division in the Sheba Medical Center and Tel-Aviv University Faculty of Medicine. He is visiting Professor at Mount Sinai Hospital, New York, USA.
He earned his medical degree at The Hebrew University (HU) of Jerusalem, and completed his residency in internal medicine, and subsequent fellowship in gastroenterology at HU’s affiliated Hadassah University Hospital, eventually becoming acting director. Professor Eliakim is a Fellow of the European Board of Gastroenterology and Hepatology.
He has published over 250 original articles, books and chapters in the medical literature.
Professor Eliakim previously served on the iCARE Governing Board and was the inaugural Chair of the Scientific Committee.
- University of Thessaly, Lamia, Greece
Dr. Dimitris Iakovidis is a Professor of Signal Processing and Medical Decision Support Systems, and Director of the Biomedical Imaging laboratory at the Department of Computer Science and Biomedical Informatics, University of Thessaly, Lamia, Greece. The research interests of Prof. Iakovidis include signal and image processing, artificial intelligence, and decision support systems, with applications in biomedicine and other domains. In this context, he has co-authored over 200 scientific papers in international journals, conferences, and books, and he has participated in several funded European and National research projects. He has contributed several pioneering methodologies for endoscopic image analysis and clinical decision making since the beginning of the millennium.
Professor Iakovidis is a Fellow of EAMBES, a Senior Member of IEEE, and member of IAPR and VPHI. He has served in Editorial positions of high-impact scientific journals, such as IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy Systems, and currently he is Editorial Board Member of the Measurement Science and Technology journal. Also, since 2014 he collaborates with the European Commission and other public authorities as an independent expert and quality controller, as well as with industrial bodies as a scientific consultant.
- Hospital São João, Porto, Portugal
- Faculty of Medicine University of Porto, Portugal
Dr. Miguel Mascarenhas is an MD (gastroenterologist), PhD, mainly focused on big data’s many challenges and opportunities in digestive healthcare. He is the founder and coordinator of Hospital São João’s Gastroenterology Precision Medicine unit. He is also the lead inventor of 8 academic patent-pending AI technologies in different fields of gastrointestinal endoscopy (capsule endoscopy, colon capsule endoscopy, Crohn’s capsule endoscopy, device-assisted enteroscopy, endoscopic ultrasound, cholangioscopy, high-resolution anoscopy and anorectal manometry).
Dr. Mascarenhas is the first author of more than 100 clinical and data-science publications in peer-reviewed indexed journals and has been awarded multiple national and international awards from the most relevant medical societies, namely the ACG Auxiliary Award 2022 (for the best scientific paper), Top 10 Oral Abstract Award from Highlights of European Crohn´s and Colitis Organization, two best of ILC awards from International Liver Congress 2021 and 2022 and IANS 2023 best presenter award.
Dr. Mascarenhas became a member of the iCARE Scientific Committee in November 2023.
- Gastroenterology and Digestive Endoscopy Unit, Fondazione Poliambulanza, Brescia, Italy
During residency in gastroenterology and digestive endoscopy at Cattolica del Sacro Cuore University, Dr. Piccirelli conducted clinical research in the field of capsule endoscopy under Professor Cristiano Spada. Member of the ESGE guidelines committee to update CE in suspected small bowel bleeding, and the first international prospective trial called ARTIC study on AI in SBCE, presenting preliminary data in many European countries.
Dr. Piccirelli has a special interest in deploying and translating clinical research to improve patient care and outcomes. She is a member of ESGE, UEG and SIED (Italian Society of Digestive Endoscopy), SIGE (Italian Society of Gastroenterology), and Board member of AGGEI (Italian Association of Young Gastroenterogists). Dr. Piccirelli joined the iCARE Scientific Committee in November 2023.
- Endoscopy Digestive Unit, Gemelli University Hospital, Rome, Italy
Dr. Maria Elena Riccioni received her medical degree from the Catholic University, Rome and a postdoc in general surgery and experimental surgery at La Sapienza University of Rome and L’Aquila University, Italy. Research interests include new endoscopic diagnostic and therapeutic technologies (capsule endoscopy and push and pull enteroscopy).
Dr. Riccioni is adjunct professor of general surgery at the Catholic University and member of SIED (Italian Society of Digestive Endoscopy) and ESGE. She has published many papers, reviews and chapter of books for both Italian and international journals (>150) with an H-Index=29 and has contributed to national guidelines for antithrombotic therapy and rare hemorrhagic diseases (von Willebrand, haemophilia). She works as a reviewer for many journals and is a member of Technical-Scientific Committee of Cottolengo Hospital in Turin and has a collaboration with LUMSA University of Rome. Dr. Riccioni joined the iCARE Scientific Committee in November 2023.
- Gastroenterology Department, Hospital Senhora da Oliveira, Guimarães, Portugal
Dr Bruno Rosa is a gastroenterologist at the Hospital da Senhora da Oliveira, Guimarães, Portugal and a member of the scientific committee of the I-CARE.His clinical, research and educational activity is focused on capsule endoscopy and device-assisted enteroscopy.
He regularly collaborates with international working groups for investigation and elaboration of clinical guidelines on small bowel endoscopy. Dr Rosa is Secretary-General of the Portuguese Small Bowel Study Group, a Member of Board of the Portuguese Society of Gastroenterology and a Member of Editorial Board of the Portuguese Journal of Gastroenterology.
Dr. Rosa is co-ordinator of the annual capsule endoscopy training program, at the School of Medicine of University of Minho, Portugal.
- Lund University, Sweden
- Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden
Professor Ervin Toth is an associate professor at Lund University and Senior Gastroenterology Consultant at Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden. He is a member of several speciality national and international societies, including the iCARE Scientific Committee and the European Colonoscopy Quality Investigation Group (ECQI). He is member of several journal editorial boards.
Professor Toth has been practicing gastroenterology since 1983. His main clinical and research interests include diagnostic and therapeutic GI endoscopy, specifically focusing on chromoendoscopy, capsule endoscopy and colonoscopy. For several decades, his research interests have been focused on the development and clinical applications of capsule endoscopy and other innovative technologies in the field of GI endoscopy, as well as in the assessment and improvement of gastrointestinal endoscopy with a focus on quality improvement, inflammatory bowel disease and colorectal cancer.
He has participated as principal investigator in 43 national and international studies and counts 193 peer-reviewed publications and 16 book chapters, of which 79 are on capsule endoscopy.
Professor Toth previously served on the iCARE Governing Board.
- Gastroenterology Department, Mater Dei Hospital, Msida, Malta
Dr. Stefania Chetcuti Zammit is a consultant gastroenterologist at Mater Dei Hospital, Msida, Malta. She qualified as a medical doctor from the University of Malta and completed a masters degree with distinction on the epidemiology of inflammatory bowel disease in the Maltese population. She has worked as a clinical research fellow and a consultant at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals, completing an MD at the University of Sheffield.
Dr. Chetcuti Zammit has published extensively in the area of small bowel pathology, including a recent paper on small bowel intussusception in adults with the iCARE Group. Research interests have led to numerous multicentre collaborations and publications including papers on the use of small bowel capsule endoscopy in coeliac disease. She has worked with other European working groups, including the ESGE training group on small bowel endoscopy and the ESGE small bowel quality improvement group. Dr. Chetcuti Zammit joined the iCARE Scientific Committee in November 2023.
