Research Workshop Program

We are delighted to invite you to the 2024 GESA Research Workshop in South Australia.  Join us before AGW 2024 to explore the theme of Food. Mood. Energy. 

Key Highlights: 

Focus: Explore the multidisciplinary nature of gastroenterology research. 

Target Audience: Experts in different fields of GI research, clinical and translational researchers from all career stages.  

Opportunity: Listen, learn, present, network and collaborate within a relaxed and supportive environment. 

Speakers: Enjoy talks from invited international and national speakers along with short talks selected from submitted abstracts. 

Dates: Wednesday 11- Friday 13 September 2024

Locations: 11-12 September
                    Stamford Grand Adelaide Hotel
                    2 Jetty Road Glenelg SA

                    13 September
                    Adelaide Convention Centre - AGW venue
                    Panorama Room 2





Wednesday Sept 11 Program


Time Session Speakers
12:00 Registration and Lunch
14:00 Welcome and Acknowledgement of Country Welcome Chair: Georgina Hold
14:10 Invited Speaker - Advanced Imaging and AI in Enabling Precision Medicine in Intestinal Disease Marietta Iacucci (Ireland)
Session 1 - Lower GI Cancer Co-Chairs: Susi Woods and Lochlan Fennell
14:45 Colorectal cancer - from benchtop to bedside Ryash Vather
15:05 Distal colonic crypt hyperplasia is not adversely impacted by Emu Oil and Saireito in a murine model of colitis-associated colorectal cancer Suzanne Mashtoub
15:15 Exploring the microbiome of the faecal immunochemical test for improved colorectal cancer screening Geraldine Laven-Law
15:20 Investigating the role of E. coli Nissle biofilm formation in colorectal cancer tumour colonisation Rebekah de Nys
15:25 Butyrate impacts polyp initiation in familial adenomatous polyposis: results of a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover trial Finaly Macrae
15:35 Participation, positivity and polyps: bowel cancer screening in people aged 40 to 49 years Erin Symonds
15:40 Question and Discussion
15:45 Characterising the role of the tumour microenvironment in colorectal cancer Thierry Jarde
16:05 Afternoon Tea
Session 2 - Upper GI Cancer Co-Chairs: Georgina Hold and Rebeka de Nys
16:30 Defining new molecular pathways in Helicobacter-induced gastric MALT lymphoma Richard Ferrero
16:50 A new ctDNA blood biomarker test to detect and monitor pancreatic adenocarcinoma in response to therapy Jean Winter
16:55 Exploring the biomarker potential of circulating small extracellular vesicles in pancreatic cancer Arunima Panda
17:00 Effects of exosomes derived from pancreatic cancer and stellate co-cultures on insulin signalling pathway factors: Potential mediators of pancreatic cancer-related diabetes Chamini Perera
17:05 The Epidemiology of Hereditary Pancreatitis Patients in Australia and Total Pancreatectomy With Islet Autologous Transplantation Outcomes Denghao Wu
17:10 Patient-derived organoid culture: Advancing personalized chemotherapy for gastrointestinal peritoneal metastases Harleen Kaur
17:15 Characterising peritoneal macrophage responses to infection in patients with cirrhotic ascites Scott Read
17:20 Questions and Discussion
17:30 Immunological predictors of outcome in gastric cancer Alex Boussioutas
Session 3 - Abstracts of Merit Chair: Kate Irvine
17:50 Impaired health-related quality of life is associated with alterations in gut microbiota in patients with inflammatory bowel disease: baseline sequencing from the Australian IBD Microbiome study Thisun Jayawardana
18:05 Transcriptomic analysis of exosome cargo derived from pancreatic cancer and stellate cells: prospective mediators of pancreatic cancer-related diabetes Helen Binang
18:20 Impact of gut microbiota on immune modulation and response to immune checkpoint inhibitors in hepatocellular carcinoma: insights from human and preclinical models Jayashi Rajapakse
18:35 Closing Remarks
19:00 Networking Event - Slow Food




Thursday Sept 12 Program


Time Session Speakers
08:30 Welcome to Day Two Chair: Mark Morrison
08:35 Food as Medicine: Therapeutic Diets for Gut Health Emma Halmos
Session 4 - Gastroenterology and Hepatology Abstracts Co Chairs: Kylie James and Rabina Giri
09:10 Research in the Disorders of Gut-Brain interaction: What scientist and clinician need to know Gerald Holtmann
09:30 Effect of feeding a minimally processed cooked diet versus an ultra-processed kibble diet on the gut microbiome and physiology of healthy domestic dogs Louise Campbell
09:35 Integrating Biology and Psychology - the My Diet Study: Risk-Benefit Assessment of Self-Directed Dieting in Young Adults. Mirei Okada
09:40 Effects of the very low energy diet compared to a Mediterranean diet on hepatic and metabolic outcomes in metabolic associated steatotic liver disease: A randomised control trial Alex Thompson
09:45 The duodenal mucosa-associated microbiota differs in patients based on their Rome IV classification, and has variable effects on duodenal spheroid barrier function subjects Lauren Schooth
09:50 Spatial transcriptomics of daHep enriched regions in pre-malignant human liver tissue: enhancing early detection and risk stratification for hepatocellular carcinoma Anjali Ghimire
09:55 Integrative machine learning model using multi-omics data for early prediction and biomarker identification of hepatocellular carcinoma Annette Spooner
10:00 Endothelial compartment expression of prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) accurately discriminates hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) from benign tissue Nicholas Hannah
10:05 A double-blind, placebo-controlled, adaptive dose-response study to assess the acute effects of micro-doses of gluten in adults with treated coeliac disease (Gluten Threshold Study). James Daveson
10:10 Colonic dysmotility associated with Disorders of Gut-Brain Interaction Phil Dinning
10:30 Morning Tea
Session 5 - Liver Disease Co Chairs: Christian Nefzger and Scott Read
11:00 Pushing the boundaries in liver cancer research to advance personalised treatment Nina Tirnitz-Parker
11:20 Remaining chronic hepatitis C treatment gaps impact on the care cascade of HCV related hepatocellular carcinoma Jessica Howell
11:30 Antigen specific natural killer cells hold promise as a novel cell therapy targeting hepatitis B virus Dishen Corey Cohen
11:35 The anti-fibrotic therapeutic potential of a proprietary microRNA-25 mimic for chronic liver disease Brianna Pollock
11:40 Therapeutic potential of Ellagic acid on a NASH mouse model Tharani Senavirathna
11:45 Identification and characterisation of a novel gene variant associated with steatotic liver disease Gary Huang
11:50 Macrophage therapeutic potential in metabolic dysfunction associated fatty liver disease Sahar Keshvari
11:55 Investigating the role of soluble PD-L1 in immunotherapy response in Hepatocellular Carcinoma patients receiving anti-PD-L1 treatment William Chambers
12:00 Genomic and epigenomic profiling of circulating tumour DNA in hepatocelullar carcinoma Lauren Andersson
12:05 Lean MAFLD: Does it exist? Understanding the phenotype Jacob George
12:20 Lunch
Session 6 - IBD Co-Chairs: Nina Tirnitz-Parker and Thisun Jayawardana
13:30 Defining the PSC-UC and UC colonic mucosa with paired microbial and single-cell RNA sequencing Kylie James
13:50 A novel and rapid faecal myeloperoxidase assay predicts endoscopic findings in patients with IBD Belal Chami
13:55 Unique faecal microbial profiles in first degree relatives of inflammatory bowel disease patientss Sabrina Koentgen
14:00 Allosteric Modulation of Cannabinoid 1 Receptor as a Novel Therapeutic Strategy for Inflammatory Bowel Disease Dinesh Thapa
14:05 Topical upadacitinib is effective in distal Ulcerative colitis - A case study and pre-clinical proof of concept Rabina Giri
14:10 Antigen-specific regulatory T cell therapy for inflammatory bowel disease Rimma Goldberg
14:15 Longitudinal microbial dynamics in an Australian adult inflammatory bowel disease cohort Yashar Houshyar
14:20 Classification methods for ultra-processed food intake show higher intake in patients with irritable bowel syndrome compared to healthy volunteers Chu Yao
14:25 Questions and Discussion
14:30 Deciphering the immunomodulatory function of the microbiome in IBD Jake Begun
14:50 Afternoon Tea
Session 7 - Talks Chair: Katharine Irvine
15:20 Decoding age-related alterations in liver transcription factor networks and zonation through spatial transcriptomics Christian Nefzger
15:40 Clinical trials in the GI space – the scientists’ role Nick Powell (UK)
16:05 Globe trekking to reach your goal – what makes a successful clinical research career Nick Talley
16:35 Closing Remarks
19:00 Evening Program - Sit-Down Dinner




Friday Sept 13 Program


Time Session Speakers
12:30 Lunch
13:30 Introduction Chair: Georgina Hold
13:35 Microbiome Therapeutics in Liver Disease Jasmohan Bajaj (US)
Session 8 - Microbiome Co Chairs: Georgina Hold and Kate Irvine
14:05 Site and strain-specific analysis of the IBD microbiome Ed Giles
14:25 Deep functional analysis of a defined sulphide-reducing diet (4-SURE diet) as a novel therapy for ulcerative colitis (UC) demonstrates all specific luminal micro environmental objectives were achieved Alice Day
14:30 Microbial signatures associated with inflammatory bowel disease in Australia: baseline sequencing from the Australian IBD Microbiome study Thisun Jayawardana
14:35 The biogeograghy of the mucosa-associated microbiota is associated with the presence and symptom severity of inflammatory bowel disease, proton pump inhibitor usage, and visceral sensitivity Mark Morrison
14:40 Multiomic modelling of antibiotic perturbed faecal microbial communities demonstrates reduced microbial resilience in Inflammatory Bowel Disease Sabrina Koentgen
14:45 The UC phenotype of a rare mutation in OTUD3 is exacerbated by high fat or high fructose diets in an experimental mouse model Rabina Giri
14:50 Therapeutic potential of inulin-coated medium-chain triglyceride microcapsules for effective treatment of metabolic and inflammatory outcomes in diet-induced disease Amin Ariaee
14:55 Hepatic steatosis in young adults is associated with altered gut microbiology Yasmina Tashkent
15:00 Microbial-Metabolite interactions in MAFLD cirrhosis: Insights from MiMeNet-driven metagenomic and metabolomic integration Mohamed Moridani
15:05 The tumour microenvironment influences checkpoint expression by gamma delta T cell subpopulations in hepatocellular carcinoma Paul Armstrong
15:10 An early review of MetaPanel™ - a diagnostic metagenomic gastrointestinal pathogen assay Michael Wehrhahn
15:15 Bringing the mucosa-associated microbiome to life to advance digestive health Mark Morrison
15:40 Get Your Message Out - How to Navigate the Publishing Journey Emad El-Omar
16:10 Closing Remarks Kate Irvine and Georgina Hold
End of AGW 2024 Research Workshop