PFIC Network Medical Advisory Board
The PFIC Network Medical Advisory Board is a committee of specialists who serve as scientific advisors to PFIC Network. Members serve as volunteers and include both clinicians and researchers. We are grateful to these PFIC experts for sharing their time and expertise with us. Their guidance helps us better serve the PFIC community and advance our mission of improving the lives of PFIC patients worldwide.
Richard Thompson, MD
King’s College, London
Laura Bull, Ph.D.
University of California San Francisco
Benjamin L. Shneider, MD
Texas Childrens Hospital, Baylor College of Medicine
Ronald J. Sokol, MD, FAASLD
Childrens Hospital Colorado
James E Squires MD, MS
Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh
Henkjan Verkade MD, PhD
University of Groningen
Pramod Mistry, MBBS, PhD, MA, MD
Yale Medicine
Dr. Thompson specialises in paediatric liver disease. In particular he is interested in genetic disease, both in children and adults. His group have identified several disease genes, and have established important genotype/phenotype correlations. He is also the Clinical Lead for the Liver Molecular Genetics service. Dr. Thompson is also a Professor of Molecular Hepatology at King’s College London.
Dr. Thompson has presented several webinars on PFIC genetics at PFIC Network conferences.
Laura Bull, Ph.D., RDN is a Professor in the Liver Center of the Department of Medicine at the University of California San Fransisco (UCSF). She is also affiliated with the UCSF Institute for Human Genetics. Her research has focused upon understanding the genetic causes and manifestations of pediatric and pregnancy-related cholestasis.
Dr. Bull contributed a detailed summary about PFIC genetics to our PFIC Research Library.
George Peterkin Endowed Chair Professor of Pediatrics and Head of Section, Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition Baylor College of Medicine Chief of Service, Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition Texas Children’s Hospital
Ronald J. Sokol, MD, FAASLD, Distinguished Professor of Pediatrics, received his medical degree from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine and completed pediatric residency training and Chief Residency at the University of Colorado (CU) School of Medicine. He completed fellowship training in Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and the University of Cincinnati. He has been a faculty member at University of Colorado School of Medicine since 1983. He was the founding Director of the Pediatric Liver Center at CU School of Medicine and his clinical interests are congenital, genetic and metabolic liver diseases of infants and children. His research includes basic, translational and clinical studies and trials centered on the pathogenesis, mechanisms, nutrition and treatment of childhood cholestatic liver diseases. He has been Chair of the Steering Committee, Executive Committee and Administrative Core of the multi-site NIDDK/NIH funded Childhood Liver Disease Research Network (ChiLDReN) since its inception in 2002. Currently, he is the Chief Scientific Officer, Child Health at CU Anschutz Medical Center and Children’s Hospital Colorado and Associate Dean for Child Health Research at CU SOM. He has been the Principal Investigator and Director of the Colorado Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (funded by NCATs CTSA awards) since 2008 and the Assistant Vice Chancellor for Clinical and Translational Science at CU Denver. He was Section Head of Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition for 16 years until May 2022. He is past President of AASLD and NASPGHAN. He has authored over 300 peer-reviewed papers, 130 book chapters, review articles and books and is co-editor of the leading pediatric liver disease textbook, Liver Disease in Children.
Dr. Sokol presented a webinar about considerations related to Covid and PFIC patients at the 2021 Virtual Family Conference.
Dr. Squires earned his medical degree from the University of Texas and went on to complete his training in general pediatrics at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center (CCHMC). Following residency, he completed fellowships in both pediatric gastroenterology and pediatric advanced/transplant hepatology at CCHMC and completed a Masters in clinical and translational at the University of Cincinnati. Following completion of his training, Dr. Squires joined the faculty at the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh in 2015 where he is currently an associate professor in pediatrics, the director of the pediatric advanced/transplant hepatology fellowship, and associate medical director of Hepatology.
Dr. Squires remains active in both clinical and research pursuits. He is a co-investigator in the Children Liver Disease Research Network, an NIH funded consortium working to improve the lives of children with rare cholestatic liver diseases. He is also a member of the Society of Pediatric Liver Transplant, a multifaceted organization focused on improving outcomes for children receiving liver transplantation. He is the Clinical Lead for the Starzl Network for Excellence in Liver Transplantation, a novel learning health network of leading pediatric transplant institutions committed to continuous improvement until every child can achieve a long and healthy life and has received funding from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute to advance this work. Other current interests include metabolic liver disease, acute liver failure, and liver transplant.
Dr. Squires has presented numerous webinars at PFIC Network conferences.
Henkjan J. Verkade is a pediatric gastro/hepatologist at the Beatrix Children’s Hospital of the University Medical Center Groningen, The Netherlands. He received his PhD degree in Medicine cum laude at the University of Groningen on the thesis entitled “Lipid absorption and metabolism”. Henkjan Verkade was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada. In 2005 Verkade was appointed Professor of Pediatrics, pediatric gastroenterology/hepatology, at the University Medical Center Groningen.
Henkjan Verkade combines clinical work in pediatric gastro/hepatology with clinical and fundamental research projects. Verkade’s current research projects involve intestinal lipid absorption and metabolism, the enterohepatic circulation, and pediatric liver disease (familial cholestatic syndromes, biliary atresia, liver transplantation). In 2017 he initiated with Bettina Hansen the global NAPPED registry (NAtural Course and Prognosis of PFIC and Effect of Biliary Diversion) and in 2022 the prospective global TreatFIC database. The NAPPED registry has been helpful to further characterize the natural history of progressive familiar intrahepatic cholestasis syndromes and to identify prognostic parameters for the course of disease and for responsiveness to treatments.
Verkade has authored more than 300 peer-reviewed publications and more than 15 book chapters. Since 2019, he is associate editor of the Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition.
Internal Medicine, Hepatology, Transplant Hepatology, Genetics
Pramod K. Mistry, MBBS, PhD, FRCP, FAASLD, cares for adults and children with inherited metabolic liver diseases. He has a particular interest in Gaucher disease, an inherited disorder in which fatty substances build up in certain organs. In addition to his clinical work, Dr. Mistry is director of the Yale Lysosomal Disease Center and the internationally recognized Gaucher Disease Treatment Center.