Richard Peek, M.D., director of the Vanderbilt Digestive Disease Research Center, has been appointed to a five-year term as editor-in-chief of the medical journal Gastroenterology beginning July 2016.
Peek, professor of Medicine and Cancer Biology, is the Mina Cobb Wallace Professor of Immunology and directs the Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition in the Department of Medicine. He is internationally known for his studies of the stomach-infecting bacterium Helicobacter pylori and its contribution to the pathogenesis of gastric cancer.
Peek will be assisted by Douglas Corley, M.D., Ph.D., MPH, clinical professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, who has been named the journal’s first deputy editor-in-chief. Corley is a world leader in epidemiology and outcomes research.
“I am honored to be able to serve as the next editor-in-chief for Gastroenterology and am grateful for the support of Vanderbilt School of Medicine, the Department of Medicine, the Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition, as well as a group of seasoned investigators that harbor an unequivocal commitment to advancing the journal,” Peek said.
“I look forward to serving as a passionate ambassador and steward for the journal and representing Vanderbilt at the very highest level,” he said.
Gastroenterology is the flagship journal of the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA), and is the premier journal in gastrointestinal and liver diseases, boasting the field’s highest impact factor. The journal is ranked in the top 1 percent of all biomedical journals, of which there are approximately 8,000.
Peek is the current chair of the AGA Institute Council, a term that will end this year. In 2013, he was elected to membership in the Association of American Physicians, one of the nation’s most respected medical honor societies.
