Editorial introductions

Abstract

Current Opinion in Gastroenterology was launched in 1985. It is one of a successful series of review journals whose unique format is designed to provide a systematic and critical assessment of the literature as presented in the many primary journals. The field of gastroenterology is divided into 12 sections that are reviewed once a year. Each section is assigned a Section Editor, a leading authority in the area, who identifies the most important topics at that time. Here we are pleased to introduce one of the Section Editors for this issue. SECTION EDITORS Don RockeyDon RockeyDr Don Rockey completed internship, residency, chief residency, and fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco, USA. He is currently Chairman of the Department of Medicine, the Medical University, Charleston, USA. He has active basic and clinical research interests in liver disease. He has worked on areas ranging from clinical management problems in liver diseases such as portal hypertension, hepatic blood flow, drug induced liver injury and complications of chronic liver disease to basic liver cell and molecular biology. The central theme of his laboratory research revolves around understanding the cell and molecular basis of fibrosis and portal hypertension. His laboratory initially demonstrated that a key player, the hepatic stellate cell, exhibits a contractile phenotype. Further, following liver injury, stellate cells exhibit exaggerated contractility, constrict liver sinusoids, and contribute to increased intrahepatic vascular resistance typical of portal hypertension. He and his laboratory have gone on to explore a number of molecular events important in this disease. Dr Rockey has had highly active clinical interests in multiple aspects of chronic liver disease as well as drug induced liver injury. Dr Rockey and his colleagues have published over 150 peer reviewed scientific papers related to his research and over 100 editorials, reviews, and book chapters. He has served in a number of capacities on behalf of major US Gastroenterology and Liver societies including for the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) and the American Association for the Study of Liver Disease (AASLD). Among many responsibilities, he has served as Chair of The AGA Research Policy Committee, Chair of the AASLD Training and Workforce committee. He has also been active in the Alliance for Academic Internal Medicine (AAIM) having served as President for the Association of Subspecialty Professors (ASP). He has had a number of editorial responsibilities, including as Associate Editor for Hepatology, Associate Editor for Liver International and has served on various NIH and other study sections, and editorial boards. Gregory J. GoresGregory J. GoresGregory J. Gores, M.D., Reuben R. Eisenberg Endowed Professor of Medicine and Physiology, is Executive Dean for Research at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, USA, is a Distinguished Investigator of the Mayo Foundation, and a past chair of the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology. A native of North Dakota, he received his undergraduate (Phi Beta Kappa) and M.D. (Alpha Omega Alpha) degrees from the University of North Dakota, USA. He received his training in Internal Medicine and Gastroenterology at Mayo, Rochester, Minnesota, USA. He is a past President of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD) and the International Liver Cancer Association (ILCA). He has chaired the Hepatobiliary Pathobiology NIH Study Section and is currently a member of the NIDDK Advisory Council. Due to his breadth and depth of interests, he has served as an Associate Editor for Hepatology on two separate terms and once for Gastroenterology. He is the past recipient of a highly prestigious and competitive NIH MERIT Award, currently a Principal Investigator of three NIH R01 grants. He has co-authored more than 500 total publications which have been cited over 25,000 times. His current h-index (number of papers with an identical number of citations) is 92. Well respected as a mentor, he has mentored over 70 post-doctoral research and clinical fellows. His clinical and research contributions include advances in our understanding of hepatobiliary malignancies, liver transplantation and mechanisms of liver cell injury.