President, Rome Foundation
Professor of Medicine
Head, Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine
Head of Clinic, Department of Gastroenterology
University Hospital KU Leuven
Translational Research Center for Gastrointestinal Disorders (TARGID)
Leuven, Belgium
Professor Jan Tack is currently a Head of Clinic in the Department of Gastroenterology, a Professor in Internal Medicine, former Chairman of the Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine at the University of Leuven, Belgium, and a founding researcher of TARGID (the Translational Research Center for Gastrointestinal Disorders) at the University of Leuven. He graduated summa cum laude in 1987 from the University of Leuven and specialised in internal medicine and gastroenterology at the same institution. A research fellow at the Department of Physiology at the Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA, from 1989 to 1990, he has been conducting research at Leuven University since 1990.
Professor Tack’s scientific interest focuses on Neurogastroenterology and Motility and includes diverse topics such as the pathophysiology and management of gastrointestinal functional and motor disorders such as gastroesophageal reflux disease, functional dyspepsia, gastroparesis, chronic constipation and the irritable bowel syndrome, the physiology and pharmacology of the enteric nervous system, gastrointestinal hormones and the control of satiation and food intake. With an h-index of 101, he has published more than 900 peer-reviewed articles in the international literature, with over 45000 citations, and he contributed more than 45 book chapters on various aspects of scientific and clinical gastroenterology. He has co-authored publications in all leading Gastroenterology journals, and several high-ranked general scientific journals (e.g., New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of Clinical Investigation, Nature genetics, PNAS, JAMA, Gastroenterology, Gut, Nature Reviews Gastroenterology Hepatology, ….). Professor Tack was the promotor of more than 25 Ph.D. fellows. He currently supervises a research group which comprises 10 Ph.D. fellows, 5 postdocs and 5 technical/support staff.
Professor Tack has won several awards for basic and clinical research in gastrointestinal science. He was awarded with the IFFGD Clinical Researcher prize in 2013 and with the Research Prize of United European Gastroenterology in 2015. He is currently president of the Rome Foundation and a council member of the European Association for Gastroenterology, Endoscopy and Nutrition.
Professor Tack is the founding Editor-in-Chief of the United European Gastroenterology Journal. He was President of the European Society of Esophagology, President of the International Society for Diseases of the Esophagus and member of the Steering Committee of the European Society for Neurogastroenterology and Motility and has served as (co-)editor for Neurogastroenterology and Motility, Gastroenterology, Gut and Digestion. He serves or has served as a member of the Editorial Board of Gastroenterology, the American Journal of Gastroenterology, Alimentary Pharmacology and Therapeutics, the Journal of Internal Medicine, Baillière’s Best Practice and Research in Clinical Gastroenterology, Annals of Gastroenterology, and the Journal of Gastroenterology.