William D. Carey, MD, is a hepatologist in the Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at The Cleveland Clinic Foundation where he has practiced since he finished his gastrointestinal medicine training at the Mayo Clinic. He served as Hepatology Section Head from 1991 to 2001. He currently is the Director of The Cleveland Clinic's Center for Continuing Education. He is also a Professor of Medicine at The Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University.

Dr. Carey has served on many prestigious national GI committees including the Practice Guidelines Committee of the American College of Gastroenterology, and the American Society for the Study of Liver Diseases.

He is past President of the American College of Gastroenterology and currently serves as a delegate to the American Medical Association.

Lennox Jeffers, MD, is currently the Chief of Hepatology at Miami VA Medical Center. He is also the Associate Chief of the Center for Liver Disease and Professor of Medicine at the University of Miami's School of Medicine in Miami Florida. He received his medical degree from College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University. His internship and residency of medicine was at Harlem Hospital, a Columbia University affiliate, in Harlem, New York. Dr. Jeffers conducted his fellowship training in gastroenterology at the Liver Research Center of Albert Einstein's College of Medicine, and concluded his fellowship training in hepatology at University of Miami's School of Medicine.

Dr. Jeffers special interest include viral hepatitis A, B, & C and portal
hypertension as well as diagnostic laparoscopy.

Marcelo Kugelmas, MD, is an Associate Professor in the Section of Hepatology at the University of Colorado in Denver, Colorado. He received his medical degree from the University of Buenos Aires in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He conducted his internal medicine residency training at Los Angeles County and University of Southern California Medical Center in Los Angeles, California and gastroenterology fellowship training in the Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at The Cleveland Clinic Foundation in Cleveland, Ohio.

Dr. Kugelmas research interests encompass the treatment of chronic viral hepatitis and cholestatic liver diseases (primary sclerosing cholangitis and primary biliary cirrhosis) before and after liver transplantation.

Thomas J. Layden, MD, is the Head of Department Medicine and Professor of Medicine at University of Illinois in Chicago, IL. He received his medical degree from Loyola University Medical School in Maywood, IL. He conducted his residency in medicine at Barnes Hospital of Washington University in St. Louis Missouri, and completed his fellowship in Gastroenterology at University of Illinois, Chicago, Illinois.

Dr. Layden has conducted research and published extensively in the area of HCV including viral kinetics and immunology in African Americans vs Caucasians.

Glenn Treisman, MD, PhD, is the Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science and Internal Medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland. He received his medical degree from the University of Michigan Medical School in Detroit, Michigan. He conducted his residency training at Johns Hopkins Hospital Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. His fellowship in Pharmacological Sciences and graduate studies were at University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Dr. Treisman special interest includes addiction and AIDS psychiatry, and motivated behavior disorders. He is a member of American Psychiatric Association, Maryland Psychiatric Association, Johns Hopkins Medical Surgical Association, and the American Association of Directors of Psychiatric Residency Training.

Carla M. Viscomi, RN, BSN, is a Research Nurse Coordinator in the Division of Gastroenterology at MetroHealth Medical Center in Cleveland, Ohio. Ms. Viscomi received her nursing degree from Kent State University in Kent, Ohio. She is the founder and former chair of Hepatology SIG, which is segment of SGNA. She is actively involved in American Association Study for Liver Disease (AASLD) and has been the course director from 2002-2003. Ms. Viscomi petitioned, organized and developed a non-physician membership called Hepatology Associates residing under the AASLD in 2001, and initiated a one-day course, which is part of the AASLD annual meeting, offering health care professionals the opportunity to expand their knowledge base for the treatment of care for patients with liver disease.

Zobair Younossi, MD, MPH, is the Executive Director of the Center for Liver Disease and the Medical Director of Liver Transplant Program at Inova Fairfax Hospital in Fairfax, Virginia. He is also the Co-Director of the Center for the Study of Genomics in Liver Diseases and Affiliate Professor of Biomedical Sciences at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. He graduated Alpha Omega Alpha from School of Medicine and Dentistry of the University of Rochester School in Rochester, New York. His internal medicine residency and gastroenterology and hepatology fellowship were conducted at Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation in La Jolla, California. He received his master in public health from San Diego State University School of Public Health, San Diego, California.

He has served on many prestigious national GI committees including Education Committee and the Practice Guidelines Committee of the American Society for the Study of Liver Diseases and the Research Committee of American College of Gastroenterology. He serves on the editorial board of Hepatology and is the associate editor of Liver International and Evidence Based Gastroenterology. He is the author of numerous articles on hepatitis C, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and quality of life in liver diseases.

Nizar Zein, MD, is the Director of Clinical Hepatology in the Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at The Cleveland Clinic. He is board certified in Internal Medicine, Pediatric, Adult Gastroenterology and Pediatric Gastroenterology. He graduated from the University of Tishreen in Syria and completed his medical degree at the Medical College of Ohio. His fellowships in Adult and Pediatric Gastroenterology were completed at the Mayo Clinic Foundation in Rochester, Minnesota where he remained as an Associated Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics and Consultant in Gastroenterology and Hepatology until October 2002 when he joined The Cleveland Clinic staff.

His research interest is focused in the area of hepatitis C. He published several original studies and has been a lead investigator of several clinical trials. He is currently an Associate Editor of the American Journal of Gastroenterology and has served in the past as a Special Section Editor of the journal Liver Transplantation. He is a member of several committees of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD) including the Practice Guideline Committee, the Abstract Review Committee, and the Program Evaluation Committee.