Charles Steenbergen Jr., MD

Gastroenterologist Mouen Khashab specializes in therapeutic endoscopy, and he oversees this group of practitioners across the Johns Hopkins enterprise. Nationally and internationally known in the field of interventional endoscopy, Dr. Khashab has contributed immensely to the field’s advancement as a minimally invasive means to treat gastrointestinal and pancreaticobiliary disorders. Dr. Khashab earned his medical degree from the American University of Beirut Faculty of Medicine, and subsequently completed a residency in internal medicine and a fellowship in gastroenterology at Indiana University. He then completed a two-year fellowship at The Johns Hopkins Hospital before joining the faculty in 2011. A busy researcher, Dr. Khashab has published more than 600 papers in peer-reviewed journals. In 2013, he described the procedure called gastric peroral endoscopic myotomy (known as G-POEM) and was able to disseminate and teach it all over the world. Other procedures that he expanded include peroral endoscopic myotomy (POEM), peroral endoscopic myotomy with fundoplication (POEM-F), Zenker’s peroral endoscopic myotomy (Z-POEM) and full thickness resection. In 2022, he received the Master Endoscopist Award from the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE) for his numerous contributions to the field. His procedural expertise includes endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP), endoscopic ultrasound (EUS), interventional EUS, submucosal endoscopy, POEM/achalasia, endoscopic mucosal resection, endoscopic submucosal dissection, luminal stenting, large polyp resection and Barrett’s therapy, among others. Dr. Khashab is involved with multiple gastrointestinal societies and has served on many committees, including the ASGE Standards of Practice Committee, which is in charge of formulating guidelines for the practice of endoscopy. He has also served as an associate editor for the journal Endoscopy, a premier journal in the field. Khashab is a highly sought-after speaker at national and international conferences, and he has participated in multiple live endoscopy conferences. Outside of academic medicine, Dr. Khashab is an entrepreneur. His major interest is in new technology and medical devices, and his goal is to disrupt the field by introducing technology that makes endoscopic procedures safer, easier, efficient and more scalable.

Dr. Garry R. Cutting is a Professor of Pediatrics and Medicine in the McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He is the Aetna/U.S. Healthcare Professor of Medical Genetics at Johns Hopkins. Dr. Cutting received his undergraduate degree in biology and medical degree from the University of Connecticut. He completed residency training in pediatrics and a fellowship in medical genetics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Cutting is the Medical Director of the DNA Diagnostic Laboratory of Johns Hopkins Genomics. He directed the Medical Genetics Residency Program at Hopkins from 1995 to 2004.Dr. Cutting is the recipient of the Paul di Sant’Agnese Distinguished Scientific Achievement Award from the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and a MERIT award from the National Institutes of Health. He has published more than 160 peer-reviewed articles. Dr. Cutting was elected to the Society of Pediatric Research (1992), the American Society of Clinical Investigation (1995) and the Association of American Physicians (2017). Dr. Cutting’s primary interests lie in the interpretation of DNA variation and their effect upon human phenotypes. Dr. Cutting’s lab focuses on the effect of common and rare variants in the CFTR gene that cause the single gene disorder cystic fibrosis (CF). His lab operates the CFTR2 database, a resource composed of clinical and genetic data on almost 90,000 individuals with CF world-wide. His laboratory also studies the effect of clinically approved and novel modulators upon CFTR protein bearing disease-causing variants. Dr. Cutting’s laboratory is also leader in the identification and characterization of genetic modifiers of cystic fibrosis. His group is currently collaborating with teams at the University of North Carolina and the University of Washington, Seattle to identify common and rare modifier variants of disease severity by whole genome sequencing of 5200 individuals with CF. Dr. Cutting participates in the clinical translation of variant interpretation as the Medical Director of the DNA Diagnostic Laboratory at Johns Hopkins. Finally, as Editor of the journal Human Mutation Dr. Cutting oversees the review and publication of manuscripts reporting the mechanism, distribution and phenotype consequences of variation in our genomes.

Dr. David Valle is a professor of pediatrics and ophthalmology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and former director of the Johns Hopkins Department of Genetic Medicine. He also serves as a geneticist for the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center.Dr. Valle holds a bachelor’s degree and medical degree from Duke University. He completed a pediatric residency at Johns Hopkins University before joining the Johns Hopkins faculty. He is interested in the genetic contributions to health and disease. He is the founding director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Inherited Disease Research. Over the years, his laboratory has discovered the genetic causation for more than 20 diseases, including those responsible for inborn errors of metabolism, inherited retinal degeneration, disorders of cellular organelle biogenesis and genetic variations that contribute risk for common disorders such as schizophrenia.Dr. Valle also serves as director of the Predoctoral Training Program in Human Genetics, as well as co-director of the Genes to Society program. He was a 2014 recipient of the annual Victor A. McKusick Leadership Award from the American Society of Human Genetics, which recognizes individuals whose professional achievements have fostered and enriched the development of human genetics as well as its assimilation into the broader context of science, medicine and health.