Dr. Joana Torres received her medical degree from the University of Coimbra, Portugal, and completed her fellowship in Gastroenterology at the Hospital Center of Coimbra, Portugal. In 2018 she earned her PhD from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Lisbon. Nowadays, she is a medical doctor specializing in Gastroenterology at both Hospital Beatriz Ângelo and Hospital da Luz (Lisboa, Portugal). Over the years she has made remarkable contributions to the field of IBD and microbiome research fostered by her postdoctoral studies at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (New York, USA). Having authored more than 150 papers with an h-index of 39 (Scopus Author 2025), her research interests focus on populations at risk for developing IBD with the goal of better understanding events taking place before the disease is diagnosed. Furthermore, she is an active member of the ECCO Guideline committee.