Michel Kahaleh, MD

Dr. Michel Kahaleh is the Clinical Director of Gastroenterology, Chief of Endoscopy, Director of the Pancreas Program, and Medical Director of the Advanced Endoscopy Research Program at the Department of Medicine, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. Trained in Erasme Hospital, University of Brussels, he became the leader of the Pancreatico-Biliary group at the University of Virginia before joining Well Cornell in July 2011 as Chief of Endoscopy until December 2017. He is world renown endoscopist boarded in Europe and the United States. He is fluent is French, Spanish and Arabic. Dr. Kahaleh's research is focused on interventional endoscopy, and the use of new devices to diagnose and treat biliary and pancreatic diseases. Using the adjunction of both Endoscopic Retrograde Cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) and Endoscopic Ultrasonography (EUS) has permitted his group to successfully treat pancreatic collections and perform newly described procedures that have had a major impact on patient management. A major focus of his research is on preventing and treating complications of advanced endoscopic procedures. He is actively analyzing the efficacy of metallic stents in both benign and malignant diseases. Another area of investigation for Dr. Kahaleh is understanding and preventing biliary and pancreatic cancer. The objective of this area of research is to develop new diagnostic techniques for reducing the mortality associated with those cancers, by detecting them earlier and treating them using novel therapies such as laser therapy and radio-frequency ablation. He is pioneering minimally invasive procedures involving therapeutic EUS , ESD and POEM locally and internationally. He is also teaching those techniques across the globe. Dr. Kahaleh has conducted 34 clinical research studies since 15 years and published 320 papers and 200 national and international scientific presentations.