Dr Irvin Modlin
Prof Gastroenterological Surgery
Yale University
Massachusetts
Dr Modlin is currently Professor of Gastroenterological Surgery at Yale University, School of Medicine and director of the GI Pathobiology Research Group. He has authored ~ 500 peer reviewed scientific and clinical papers and written ~16 books on diverse subjects including acid peptic disease, pancreatic maladies, laparoscopic surgery, endoscopy, the evolution of therapy, the history of medicine, the medical evolution of cities and Dutch art.
Dr. Modlin was born in Cape Town, South Africa and educated in Cape Town, Dublin, Leeds and London. He received a M.B, Ch B. magna summa cum laude and the Gold Medals for Surgery by both the South African College of Surgeons and the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1975. He trained in gastrointestinal surgery, advanced endoscopy and endocrine surgery at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School, Hammersmith Hosp, University of London (1975-1977) with Dr. S Bloom, before joining the faculty at UCLA and the Center for Ulcer Research Education (1977-1979) with Dr M Grossman. In 1980 he joined the faculty at SUNY, New York and in 1984 was appointed Vice Chairman of the department of Surgery at Yale and Chief of Surgery at the West Haven Veterans Administration Medical Center.
In 1989, the University of Cape Town awarded Dr. Modlin a Ph.D. in molecular physiology. In 1990 he received a Fulbright scholarship (1989-1990) and in 1991 the University of Gothenburg in Sweden awarded him a M.D. (Hon. Causa). In 2005 he was awarded a DSc. in gastroenterology for his work in the field of neuroendocrine biology. He has delivered the I.N. Marks lecture (Johannesburg, 1994), the Jena Polya Memorial Lecture (Budapest, 1995), the Arris and Gale lecture (London, 1995) and the Theodor Kocher Oration (Bern, 1996). In 1997, he was appointed Huntarian Professor by the Royal College of Surgeons of England and in 1998 received a fellowship. In 1999, he delivered the Bayliss and Starling Lecture at Queen’s University, Belfast; in 2000 the Centenary Oration at the Japanese Surgical Society; in 2002 the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh appointed him a James IV Professor; in 2005 he received the Mikulicz medal of the Polish surgical society and in 2010 he will deliver the Marie Curie Memorial Lecture in Vienna. He has received the Yale surgical teaching award on more than a dozen occasions.
Dr Modlin’s current clinical interests are in neuro endocrine tumor disease and esophagitis and his research focuses on the molecular basis of enterochromaffin cell function, neoplastic transformation and the identification of genetic signatures of metastasis. In 2008 he chaired the NCI Summit Conference on Neuroendocrine Tumor Disease and in 2009 the NET Pathology Consensus meeting. His investigative studies have been funded by the US Federal government and the National institutes of Health for more than two decades. Dr Modlin has been the distinguished guest and state of the art lecturer in over a hundred universities and medical schools in more than thirty countries. Currently his activities focus on therapeutic consensus development, the identification of viable advances in translational research as well as biotechnology interface assessment and application.