Volume 21, Issue 1

Professor Christian Maaser is the head of gastroenterology at the Lüneburg Ambulanzzentrum in Germany. He is a very experienced IBD specialist and has led many important studies in the field. He has been particularly active in developing the use of ultrasonography as a point of care test in the management of IBD patients. He is also the new Education Officer of ECCO, succeeding Gionata Fiorino. We are very honored and pleased to discuss with Christian his vision as Education Officer of ECCO.

Microscopic Colitis is an increasingly recognised cause of chronic watery diarrhoea, yet it remains frequently underdiagnosed. With growing research interest and improved awareness, the ECCO Microscopic Colitis Working Group (MCWG) is playing a central role in advancing the field. We spoke with Andreas Münch about the evolving landscape of microscopic colitis, current challenges and future priorities.

I graduated from Ras Al Khaimah Medical and Health Sciences University in the UAE and completed a five-year residency there. I subsequently moved to the UK, where I completed Internal Medicine Training (IMT Stage 1). I am currently finishing gastroenterology specialty training, due for completion in September 2026, after which I will be undertaking an IBD fellowship. My primary interest in IBD is the management of complex Crohn’s Disease.

Congratulations to the winners of the ECCO Fellowships and Grants awarded at the ECCO Congress 2026 in Stockholm! As part of its continued commitment to advancing IBD research, ECCO announced that its investment in research and travel grants would rise to EUR 2.5 million, with the result that a second Pioneer Award and five more ECCO Research Grants were awarded.

At ECCO’26 in Stockholm, Isabelle Cleynen (Belgium) stepped down from the ECCO Scientific Committee. An associate professor at KU Leuven and leader of the Lab for Complex Genetics within the Department of Human Genetics, Isabelle joined SciCom in February 2022 and served as Chair for two years (February 2024–2026). She worked closely with the committee and the ECCO Office to support improvements to the Fellowships and Grants reviewer process and to galvanise ECCO’s reviewer community in response to an increasing number of funding applications.

The Scientific Committee of ECCO (SciCom) was one of the first committees created at ECCO and now, almost 60 committee meetings later, its core mission remains to link basic and translational research to the clinical parameters of IBD in order to achieve better therapeutic management and improved long-term outcomes for patients.