Page 75 - IFSO-History-Book-Digital-File

25 - Gerhard Prager 2023-2024 Austria

Professor Prager has led the MBS program at the Medical
University of Vienna since 2004 and, in 2021, became the
university’s first full Professor of Bariatric Surgery. He chaired
IFSO’s Scientific Advisory Board from 2011-2015 and served as
President of the IFSO European Chapter (IFSO-EC) from
2018-2020. His leadership path culminated in his election to IFSO
President from 2023-2024. During his presidential tenure, he also
presided over the IFSO-EC Congress held in Vienna in May 2024.
The same year, he chaired an IFSO international consensus
conference addressing the ways in which new obesity
management medications, including GLP-1 receptor agonists,
should be integrated in the treatment armamentarium with MBS, a
guideline effort reflecting the field’s rapidly changing therapeutic
landscape. Over his career, Prager has performed nearly 10,000
procedures and authored more than 400 scientific publications.

26 - Ricardo Cohen 2024-2025 Brazil
Professor Cohen directs the Center for Obesity and Diabetes at
Hospital Alemão Oswaldo Cruz in São Paulo, Brazil, where his
research and a personal volume of over 10,000 surgeries have
established him as a global pioneer in MBS, particularly for
patients with type 2 diabetes who do not have severe obesity. He
served as President of the Brazilian Society of Bariatric and
Metabolic Surgery (SBCBM) from 2011-2012, and of the IFSO
Latin American Chapter (IFSO-LAC) from 2018-2019. He
organized and presided over the 2016 IFSO World Congress in
Rio de Janeiro. Cohen’s international leadership path culminated
in his recent service to IFSO as its President from 2024-2025. A
monumental figure in global medical policy, Cohen was a key
coordinator for the Second Diabetes Surgery Summit (DSS-II),
successfully leading the effort to integrate metabolic surgery into
standard global type 2 diabetes treatment algorithms. Further, his
presidential tenure was defined by guiding the consensus policies
that established how modern weight-loss medications should be
combined with metabolic surgery. Cohen has served as the
principal investigator on landmark clinical trials examining MBS
outcomes in patients with diabetes and only moderate obesity, as
well as the protective effects of MBS against diabetic kidney
disease. He has authored or co-authored over 100 scientific
papers, editorials, and textbook chapters, and serves on the
editorial boards of Obesity Surgery, Surgery for Obesity and
Related Diseases, and other prominent journals.

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