Emeran Mayer

Dr. Mayer received his MD degree from the Ludwig Maximilian’s University in Munich, Germany, in 1976, completed his residency at the Vancouver General Hospital in Vancouver, Canada, and his GI fellowship training at the UCLA/VA Wadsworth Training Program. Dr. Mayer has a career long interest in clinical and research aspects of brain body interactions, with a longstanding focus on the bidirectional communication between the brain and the gut in health and disease. He is recognized as one of the leading investigators in the world of brain gut microbiome interactions in GI disorders, including functional and inflammatory bowel disorders, ingestive behavior/obesity. He has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health since 1989.

He has been PI of a NIH Center grant on sex differences in functional GI disorders for the past 15 years, is PI on a NIDDK funded consortium grant of brain bladder interactions, Co-PI on a grant by the Department of Defense on brain gut microbiome interactions in autism spectrum disorders, and PI on a RO1 grant on brain gut interactions in IBS. He has published 344 peer-reviewed articles in the leading GI and Neuroscience journals, including 100 reviews and book chapters and has co-edited three books. His articles have been cited 44, 350 times and his h-factor is 105. He has recently published a book for the general public on brain gut microbiome interactions (The Mind Gut Connection) which has been translated into 14 languages.

Dr. Mayer is the director of the G. Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress and Resilience, and co-director of the CURE: Digestive Diseases Research Center. He has received numerous awards, most recently the Distinguished Mentor Award from the American Gastroenterological Association and the Ismar Boas Medal of the German Gastroenterological Association. He has been a regular member of the NIDDK CIMG study section from 2010-2015, has been president of the Functional Brain Gut Group, and associate editor of Gastroenterology.