[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/Collins_1_opt.jpg” caption=”Stephen Collins”]He is considered among his peers to be the pre-eminent gastroenterologist in Canada and among the top two or three in the world. His research and scholarship have helped to make McMaster's intestinal disease research unit the top clinical and investigative gastrointestinal group in the world.

In his 21 years at McMaster, Stephen Collins has been a scholar of the highest calibre, earning an international reputation for excellence in research and scholarship in the field of gastroenterology. McMaster is honouring his career and lifetime achievements and contributions with the title University Professor, which he will hold for his lifetime.

The title is the highest honour McMaster can bestow on its faculty and the designation is awarded to professors who demonstrate exceptional achievement by distinction in research, scholarship and education such that the work has made a major impact on a given field of study, and/or the work has had a major impact across disciplinary boundaries.

Collins is one of the foremost experts on factors that influence the physiology and pathophysiology of the gut. He studies brain-gut interactions and gastrointestinal motility with a focus on three specific areas: the role of the immune system and its relationships with the gastrointestinal system, the role of neuropeptide mediators in gut inflammation and the relationship between the brain and the gastrointestinal tract. The researcher is recognized for his novel and integrated multi-disciplinary approaches to clinical studies.

The author of more than 200 peer-reviewed publications, he is a much sought-after speaker and has served on many national and international committees and organizations such as the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of Canada and the Inflammatory Bowel Disease Research Network. Honours he has received include the Janssen Research Award and the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of Canada's Finkelstein Award.

Collins completed his medical training in the United Kingdom, training as a house physician and surgeon at Westminster Hospital Medical School in London before coming to Canada in the mid-seventies. Following a residency and clinical fellowship at McMaster (1975-1978) Collins was a research associate with the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. He joined McMaster's division of medicine as an assistant professor in 1981.

He is currently professor of medicine and head of the division of gastroenterology and Glaxo-Wellcome Chair in Gastroenterology in the Faculty of Health Sciences.