Fernando Magro was elected president of the ECCO – European Crohn’s and Colitis Organisation. The CINTESIS researcher and professor at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto (FMUP) is now the first Portuguese to stand for and win this election, which involves specialists from all over the world.
The new president of the ECCO was elected at the General Assembly, by a wide margin of votes, during the 18th ECCO Congress, which took place from March 1 to 4, in Copenhagen, Denmark, and counted, this year, with nearly seven thousand participants from 93 countries.
“It is an honour to chair the largest institution worldwide in medical education and training in diagnosis and treatment of Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis and in research in inflammatory bowel disease”, says Fernando Magro, as he comes back from the ECCO Congress.
After a vote by his peers in which he was the clear winner, Fernando Magro will be for six years in the ECCO Governing Board, responsible for the development of the organization’s objectives, which include the definition of standards for diagnosis and treatment of these diseases.
According to the CINTESIS researcher, his commitment is to maintain Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) education and training at the highest level, promote diagnostic and therapeutic guidelines and seek to standardise practices in the international community.
“There are currently new therapies, increasingly targeted treatments and new strategies to address inflammatory bowel disease that, rather than just treating symptoms, prevent complications,” he remarks.
Fernando Magro is a researcher of CINTESIS@RISE, an Associate Professor at FMUP, a founding member of the Inflammatory Bowel Disease Study Group (GEDII), and a gastroenterologist at the University Hospital Centre of São João.