5 WORLD GASTROENTEROLOGY NEWS JANUARY 2016 Gastro 2015: AGW-WGO | Expert Point of View | Gastro 2016: EGHS-WGO | WDHD News | WGO & WGOF News | WGO Global Guidelines | Calendar of Events • “Impact of gastric emptying and small intestine transit on blood glucose, intestinal hormones, glu-cose absorption in the morbidly obese” by Nam Nguyen (Austra-lia) On Tuesday evening, postgraduates and delegates alike were invited to the Opening Ceremony, which fea-tured an introduction of the partner organization leadership and Congress Steering Committee. The leadership each gave a brief speech welcoming all attendees to the Congress. Profes-sor Garcia-Tsao also presented a brief address. Also recognized during the Opening Ceremony were the finalists and winning Posters of Merit. WGO was honored to present the Nature Reviews Gastroenterology & Hepatol-ogy poster awards to: Wei-Lun Chang (Taiwan), Alex Huelsen (New Zea-land), and Mayur Garg (Australia). Staff from both the WGO and GESA booths greeted attendees as they entered the Exhibition Hall where the Opening Ceremony took place. The area offered delegates a showcase of products, services, and expertise from sponsors and exhibi-tors from around the world. In ad-dition, many abstracts were submit-ted and well over 175 posters were accepted for display in the Exhibition Hall during Gastro 2015. To view and download the abstracts presented at the Congress, which have been printed in the Journal of Gastroen-terology and Hepatology, visit http:// onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ jgh.2015.30.issue-s3/issuetoc. Throughout the Core Program oral presentations, chosen as the highest scoring abstracts, were presented at Free Paper Sessions. During the remaining three days of the Core Program, participants were presented with the latest scientific and clinical developments by renowned experts from around the globe. The faculty was pleased to present a program that met the diverse educational needs of the attendees. Interspersed throughout the Core Program were WGO ses-sions, including: the WGO Special Regional Expert Series, three sessions discussing GI issues of importance around the globe on Wednesday, and WGO sessions – Nutrition and Mal-nutrition and Endoscopy in resource challenged countries. Several lunch and evening satellite symposia were held throughout the Congress, organized by the biomedi-cal industry and open to all Congress participants. The Congress was supported by numerous sponsors who assisted in making Gastro 2015 the success that it was. From sponsoring sessions, to registration, to various Congress materials, the Congress partners are extremely appreciative of the gener-ous contributions of our Platinum, Gold, and Silver Sponsors, and all those who exhibited during Gastro 2015! WGO also conducted various exciting activities: firstly, an exhibit booth featuring the many programs and activities of WGO. Addition-ally, various WGO related meetings also took place, including many committee meetings and the Gen-eral Assembly to which all WGO Member Societies were invited. Many important actions took place during the General Assembly, in-cluding the handover of the WGO Presidency from Professor James Toouli to Professor David Bjorkman, the ratification of the WGO Statutes & By-laws, the presentation of the 2015-2017 Nominations for WGO Committees and Interest Groups, the announcement of the 2015 Mas-ters of the WGO (MWGO) award recipients, and the location for the 2019 World Congress, which will take place in collaboration with the Turkish Society of Gastroenterology (TSG) in Istanbul, Turkey. Addition-ally the various WGO programs were discussed and their successes celebrated. We very much enjoyed celebrating the exciting happenings in our field and continue to receive positive feed-back from many of you regarding the presentations and lectures and how they will benefit you in your future treatment of patients. We hope that you enjoyed your stay in Brisbane and were also able to enjoy some WGO Past President James Toouli presents Professor Barry Marshall with a certificate recognizing him as the WGO Distinguished Lecturer. Professor Kelly Burak presents his lecture during the Presidents’ Picks session. WGO Past President James Toouli presents Wei-Lun Chang with the Nature Reviews Gastroenterology & Hepatology International Poster Award.
ewgn-vol20-issue4-FINAL
To see the actual publication please follow the link above