Emad El-Omar

Professor Emad El-Omar is a leading academic in Medicine at the St George & Sutherland Clinical School, University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, Australia. He serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Gut (impact factor 23.0) and directs the UNSW Microbiome Research Centre (MRC) at St George Hospital, managing over 100 global collaborative projects.

• Education: BSc (Hons) in Pathology (1986), MB ChB (1988), MD with Honours and Bellahouston Medal (1995), FRCP (2002), FRSE (2007), FRACP (2017)

His research focuses on chronic inflammation-driven gastrointestinal (GI) cancers, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), and microbiome-host interactions in GI and non-GI diseases. Key projects include the MothersBabies Study (microbiome in pregnancy outcomes) and the Healthy Optimal Australian Microbiome (HOAM) Study, alongside AI-driven microbiome biomarker research for liver cancer detection.

• Presidential Medal, British Society of Gastroenterology (2015)
• Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (2007)
• Member of the Association of Physicians of Great Britain and Ireland (2001)
• Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (2002)
• Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (2017)
• Honorary Fellow of the Hong Kong Society of Gastroenterology
• Wensel-Sherbaniuk Lectureship Award (2018)
• Sir Arthur Hurst Lecture Award (2021)

He supervises five PhD candidates exploring themes like microbiome in pregnancy, IBD, polycystic ovary syndrome, frailty and cognitive function, and psychology. His grants include NHMRC Synergy Grant ($5M, 2022–2026), Australian Federal Government funding for MRC establishment ($4M, 2017–2021) and bioinformatics ($2M, 2018–2022), and Medical Research Future Fund support for HOAM and liver cancer biomarkers ($3.989M, 2021–2025). The MRC under his leadership drives interdisciplinary research in microbiome-related health and disease, with strong Asia-Pacific partnerships.