Discover the speakers of the IHU Annual Scientific Symposium and the 2025 Autumn School.
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Professor of Public Health and Hospital Practitioner, Epidemiology and Public Health
UMR 1319 Université de Lorraine – Inserm: INSPIIRE (Interdisciplinarity in Public Health, Interventions & Complex Measurement Instruments – Eastern Region)
Nancy University Hospital
Speaker at the Autumn School
Cédric Baumann is the head of the School of Public Health at the Faculty of Medicine (Université de Lorraine) and leads the Methodology, Data Management and Statistics Unit at Nancy University Hospital. Affiliated with the INSPIIRE research laboratory, his work focuses on integrating patient-reported health measures into the management of chronic diseases, through both analytical and interventional approaches.
MD, PhD, Gastroenterology
IBD Clinical and Research Center – Director
University of Manitoba – Winnipeg, Canada
Invited Speaker at the Symposium and the Autumn School
Dr. Charles Bernstein graduated from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Manitoba and completed a gastroenterology fellowship program at UCLA. He is Distinguished Professor of Medicine, holds the Bingham Chair in Gastroenterology Research, and is Director of the IBD Clinical and Research Center at the University of Manitoba.
His main research interests are primarily related to IBD; in terms of optimizing management approaches; exploring predictors of clinical outcomes; and disease etiology including related to the gut microbiome. Dr. Bernstein has been a pioneer in Canada in harnessing administrative health data to study chronic immune diseases and in developing a population based database, the University of Manitoba IBD Epidemiology Database, that has both served as a model for the development of other similar databases in other provinces as well as a unique tool to study IBD.
More recently, he has been actively involved in exploring the biological and clinical intersection between different chronic immune mediated inflammatory diseases.
He has published over 740 peer reviewed articles, 29 book chapters, and is a co-editor of one of the seminal gastrointestinal clinical-pathology textbooks.
As of July 15, 2025 his Google H-Index is 136 and he has had 83000 citations. In 1998 he was elected into the International Organization for the Study of IBD and served as its scientific secretary 2007-2011. In 2008 he was inducted as a fellow into the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. In 2009, he was named the inaugural Bingham Chair in Gastroenterology at the University of Manitoba. In 2012 he was elected into the Royal Society of Canada -Life Sciences Division of the Academy of Science. In 2019 he was awarded the Crohn’s and Colitis Canada Research Leadership Award. In 2022 he was awarded with the Richard N Fedorak Award of Distinction for peer education of IBD presented at Mentoring in IBD; The Master Class 2022.
MD-PhD, Gastroenterology
UMR1216 Inserm – CNRS – Université Grenoble Alpes
Grenoble Institute of Neurosciences (GIN)
Grenoble University Hospital
Invited Speaker a the Symposium
Prof. Bruno Bonaz earned his MD, PhD degrees at the Grenoble Faculty of Medicine & Hospital, France. He has been professor of gastroenterology in the Division of Gastroenterology and Liver Diseases in Grenoble since 2001. He was assistant professor of medicine, from 1992 to 2001. He was a post-doctoral fellow (1992-1993) in the research laboratory of Prof. Yvette Taché at CURE Digestive Diseases Research Center, UCLA, and in the lab. of Prof. Serge Rivest (1994), Laboratory of Molecular Endocrinology, CHUL Research Center, Quebec City.
He has been a member of the “Cerebral Stimulation & Systems Neuroscience” team at the Grenoble Institute of Neurosciences (GIN), Inserm U1216, and was previously the team leader of the group “Stress and Neurodigestive Interactions” at the GIN. He is working on brain-gut interactions since 1986, focusing on irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) with a special interest on the role of stress and the autonomic nervous system. He is working on the anti-inflammatory properties of the vagus nerve through vagus nerve stimulation. He is also interested by hypnosis in IBS and IBD. He received his degree of hypnotherapy in 2006 and was responsible of the diploma of hypnotherapy at the Grenoble Faculty of Medicine.
He was vice president and then president of the International Society of Autonomic Neuroscience (2015-2019). He is president of the French Equivalence Committee of Gastroenterology, since 2008. He is member of several societies of gastroenterology, neurosciences, and physiology.
He is also a scientific expert for numerous journals in the domains of gastroenterology, neurosciences, physiology, internal medicine, pharmacology, as well as for Inserm and pharmaceutical industries.
He was invited to give conferences in Europe, USA, Australia, Japan, and North Africa.
He taught gastroenterology and gastrointestinal physiology to medical students, student nurses and student midwives. He has published 173 manuscripts referenced in PubMed.
He is presently Professor Emeritus at the Grenoble Alpes University-Faculty of Medicine and member of the Grenoble Institute of Neuroscience.
MD-PhD, Neurology
UMR1087 Inserm – CNRS – Université de Nantes: Institute of Thorax and Nervous System
Nantes University Hospital
Speaker at the Autumn School
Pascal Derkinderen has a research interest in Parkinson’s disease and related disorders. His work focuses on gastrointestinal involvement in Parkinson’s disease, particularly its role in disease progression and the development of digestive biomarkers.
MD-PhD, Nutrition and gastroenterology
Nice University Hospital
Côte d’Azur University
Invited Speaker at the Symposium
Xavier Hébuterne is a gastroenterologist and Professor of Nutrition. He established the nutritional support unit for patients with intestinal failure, the accredited Home Parenteral Nutrition Center, and the IBD Expert Center in Nice. Through these initiatives, he has contributed to promoting a comprehensive approach to the management of IBD patients, including diagnosis, treatments, patient education, clinical research, psychology, nutrition, pain management, and more.
Prof. Francisca JOLY
MD, PhD – Nutrition and Gastroenterology
UMR1149 Inserm – CNRS – Université Paris Cité: CRI (Inflammation Research Center)
Beaujon Hospital – AP-HP, Department of Gastroenterology, IBD and Nutritional Support
Francophone Society of Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism (SFNCM) – President
Invited Speaker at the Symposium and at the Autumn School
Associate Professor, Nutrition and Neurology
UMR1256 – Inserm – Université de Lorraine: NGERE (Nutrition, Genetics and Environmental Risk Exposure)
Speaker at the Autum School
In 2014, Tunay Kokten defended his PhD thesis in Life Sciences – Molecular and Cellular Biology at the University of Strasbourg. His research, conducted in the field of dental tissue engineering, focused on generating a biological tooth from dental stem cells. More specifically, he studied the functional aspect of the regenerated tooth. To this end, he developed techniques enabling the vascularization and innervation of the tooth so that it would be fully functional.
In 2015, he joined the NGERE research laboratory led by Professor Jean-Louis Guéant and was assigned to Team 2, focusing on “Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (IBD),” headed by Professor Laurent Peyrin-Biroulet. His work aimed at developing an innovative therapeutic approach for the treatment of IBD.
In 2019, he was appointed Associate Professor at the University of Lorraine, where he teaches across several CNU disciplines, including Physiology (CNU66), Cell Biology (CNU65), and Neurosciences (CNU69). For his research, he is affiliated with the NGERE laboratory, now directed by Professor David Meyre, specifically within Team 1, Group 1: “Abnormal Brain Development and Aging: Environmental, Nutritional, Metabolic and Epigenomic Interactions.” Within this group, his work focuses on the impact of perinatal micronutrient deficiency in methyl donors on gut–brain communication and its postnatal consequences in the pathophysiology of mental disorders.
Prof. Valérie LAURENT
MD-PhD, Radiology
UMR1254 – Inserm – Université de Lorraine: IADI (Adaptive Diagnostic and Interventional Imaging)
Nancy University Hospital
Intervenante au colloque
CNRS Researcher, Immunology and Inflammation
UMR7365 – Université de Lorraine – CNRS: IMoPA (Molecular and Cellular Engineering and Physiopathology)
Invited Speaker at the Symposium
David Moulin is a Research Scientist at CNRS (Université de Lorraine), specializing in immunometabolism and chronic inflammation. His research focuses on PPARγ, IL-33, and the gut microbiota in inflammatory joint and digestive diseases. Author of 40 publications, he is currently coordinating a project on the gut–joint axis and contributes to national and European collaborative programs (ANR, Eurostars). He is also involved in several scientific bodies, including the Arthritis Foundation and the French Society for Mineralized Tissue Biology.
Researcher at Inserm, Neurosciences and Immunology
UMR1235 – Inserm – Université de Nantes: TENS (The Enteric Nervous System in Gut and Brain Disorders)
Invited Speaker at the Symposium
David Moulin is a Research Scientist at CNRS (Université de Lorraine), specializing in immunometabolism and chronic inflammation. His research focuses on PPARγ, IL-33, and the gut microbiota in inflammatory joint and digestive diseases. Author of 40 publications, he is currently coordinating a project on the gut–joint axis and contributes to national and European collaborative programs (ANR, Eurostars). He is also involved in several scientific bodies, including the Arthritis Foundation and the French Society for Mineralized Tissue Biology.
Senior Researcher at Inserm, Intestinal Physiology
UMR1235 – Inserm – Université de Nantes: TENS (The Enteric Nervous System in Gut and Brain Disorders)
Speaker at the Autumn School
Michel Neunlist, Inserm Research Director, holds an engineering degree in physics from the École nationale supérieure de physique de Strasbourg and a PhD in electrophysiology from the University of Strasbourg. He completed a five-year research training program at the Department of Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, where he developed optical recording methods to measure cardiac activity. He then spent five years at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Hanover (Germany), training in enteric neurobiology. In 2000, he joined the Institute of Digestive Diseases in Nantes, where he developed a translational research program focusing on the role of the enteric nervous system in digestive and brain diseases. He is currently Director of the Inserm TENS unit.
Dr. Freddy Odille
Senior Researcher at Inserm, Imaging
UMR1254 – Inserm – Université de Lorraine: Head of IADI (Adaptive Diagnostic and Interventional Imaging)
CIC-IT 1433 – Nancy University Hospital – Inserm – Université de Lorraine
Invited Speaker at the Symposium
MD, PhD – Nutrition
UMR1256 – Inserm – Université de Lorraine: NGERE (Nutrition, Genetics and Environmental Risk Exposure)
Nancy University Hospital
Speaker at the Autumn School
Pr. Didier Quilliot, MD, PhD in Nutrition at Nancy University Hospital and member of the NGERE unit, is Director of the Nutritional Support Unit within the Department of Diabetology and Nutrition. A recognized specialist in artificial nutrition, obesity, bariatric surgery, insulin resistance, and malnutrition, he also provides pre- and post-operative nutrition consultations in the Department of Digestive Surgery. As coordinator and clinical expert of a reference center for metabolic diseases requiring personalized nutritional care, he is also a prolific author whose widely cited scientific work makes a significant contribution to the advancement of medical nutrition.
Dr. Eleni SIOPI
Associate Professor, Neuroscience and Cell Biology
INSERM UMR1151 CNRS UMR8253 – Université Paris Cité : INEM (Institut Necker Enfants-Malades)
Speaker at the Autumn School
Researcher at Inserm, Molecular Biology and Intestinal Physiology
UMR1149 – Inserm – Université Paris Cité – ERL CNRS 8252: CRI (Inflammation Research Center) – Head of the Team “Host–Environment Interface in Chronic Inflammatory Diseases”
Invited Speaker at the Symposium
After obtaining her PhD in physiology and molecular genetics in 2011 at Blaise Pascal University in Clermont-Ferrand, Emilie Viennois spent eight years at Georgia State University, where she specialized in the study of chronic inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). In 2020, she joined the Center for Research on Inflammation in Paris, and since 2023 she leads the INTERFACE, which study the dialogue between the host and the microbiota in chronic inflammatory diseases. Her current work focuses on miRNAs in the luminal content and their action on the host and microbiota. It aims to understand whether and how the miRNA-microbiota axis could play a key role in intestinal homeostasis, the deregulation of which leads to chronic intestinal disorders such as IBD.
Full Professor of Sociology
Université de Lorraine: TETRAS (Territory, Work, Age and Health)
Speaker at the Autumn School
