Dr. Michel Gagner was born in 1960 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Dr. Gagner obtained a Diploma in Sciences at the Seminaire de Sherbrooke in Sherbrooke in 1978 and his M.D. from the Faculte de Medecine de l'Universite de Sherbrooke in Canada in 1982. He did his surgical training at McGill University in Montreal from 1982-1988. During his residency he completed 2 years of a Ph.D. program on human lipolysis in sepsis at the Royal Victoria Hospital, McGill University from 1984-1986. Dr. Gagner also completed fellowships in hepatic surgery at Hopital Villejuif in Paris, France and pancreatico-biliary surgery at Lahey Clinic Medical Center in Burlington, Massachusetts, from 1989-1990. Upon completion of his fellowships, he was recruited to the Universite de Montreal School of Medicine, Hotel-Dieu de Montreal, where he was Assistant Professor of Surgery (1990-1995). He then spent several years at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in Cleveland where he co-founded the Minimally Invasive Surgery Center (1995-1998). He was appointed the Franz Sichel Professor of Surgery and Director of the Minimally Invasive Surgery Center of Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, from 1998 to 2003. He then joined Weill Medical College of Cornell University (New York) as Professor of Surgery and Chief of the Section of Laparoscopic and Bariatric Surgery (2003-2007). He was until recently, Chair of the Department of Surgery at the Mount Sinai Medical Center (Miami) and Professor of Surgery at Florida International University, and is currently Professor of Surgery in Montreal. Dr Gagner is known for his contributions in the field of Minimally Invasive Surgery, in particular the first description of laparoscopic adrenalectomy for Cushing syndrome and pheochromocytoma (1992), first description of laparoscopic pancreatectomy (distal and proximal) (1992-93), first description of endoscopic neck surgery with parathyroidectomy in 1995, first transgastric cholecystectomy in 1997 (NOTES), first description of laparoscopic duodenal switch for obesity in 1999 and laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy in 2000. More recently, he was co-surgeon for the first world transatlantic robotic cholecystectomy, between New York City and Strasbourg (France), the only surgical article published in Nature in 2001. He has over 300 published journal articles, 40 book chapters, and 8 books on minimally invasive surgery. He has been visiting professor and operated in over 60 institutions in 48 countries. He has held prominent positions in more than 35 societies and organizations, and has served on the editorial boards of 12 surgical journals. Dr Gagner also has received a number of honorary memberships and awards throughout his career. His most recent contributions focus on innovative upper digestive tract surgery such as bariatric and endoluminal gastric procedures.