Professor El-Omar graduated in Medicine from Glasgow University, Scotland, and trained as a gastroenterologist. He was a Visiting Scholar/Scientist at Vanderbilt University, TN, and National Cancer Institute, MD, USA, and Chair of Gastroenterology at Aberdeen University, Scotland, for 16 years before taking up the Chair of Medicine at University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. He is the Editor in Chief of the journal Gut. His research interests include all aspects of the microbiome, inflammation driven GI cancer and IBD. He is the Director of the UNSW Microbiome Research Centre at St George Hospital, Sydney, and currently oversees over 100 collaborative research projects.