Christopher C. Thompson, MD, MSc, FASGE is an internationally recognized leader in interventional gastrointestinal endoscopy and a pioneer in foregut and bariatric endoscopy. He is Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Director of Endoscopy and Therapeutic Endoscopy at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, where he also directs the Advanced Endoscopy Fellowship and serves as Co-Director of the Center for Weight Management and Wellness. He is the Principal Investigator of the Developmental Endoscopy Laboratory, a translational research program dedicated to the development and clinical integration of novel endoscopic technologies. These activities have resulted in several start-up companies, over 300 publications, and an H-index of 83. He is also a regular contributor to Forbes Health and is the incoming Treasurer for the ASGE.
Dr. Thompson’s career is characterized by integrated contributions spanning procedural innovation, translational research, clinical program development, education and mentorship, professional society leadership, and industry translation. Across these domains, his work has helped define foregut and bariatric endoscopy as a distinct subspecialty within interventional endoscopy, while advancing endoluminal surgery as a reproducible, evidence-based alternative to conventional operative approaches. The sections below highlight these contributions across innovation, training, research, and leadership.
Procedural Innovation
Dr. Thompson is widely regarded as a foundational figure and often referred to as the “father” of bariatric endoscopy. As a fellow in training and in his early career Dr. Thompson patented and developed transoral outlet reduction (TORe) as an endoscopic therapy for weight regain following Roux-en-Y gastric bypass. He also explored primary endoscopic gastric remodeling procedures in animal models that led to the first-in-human trial on greater curvature suturing for weight loss in 2008. In 2012, as an extension of this prior work, he performed the first-in-human cases of endoscopic sleeve gastroplasty (ESG) using the Apollo OverStitch. ESG subsequently evolved through iterative technical refinement and prospective clinical investigation into a standardized, widely adopted primary endoscopic therapy for obesity. Dr. Thompson played a leading role in its clinical evaluation, including multicenter studies assessing safety, durability, and metabolic outcomes, culminating in the MERIT trial, which supported U.S. Food and Drug Administration De Novo marketing authorization. ESG is now performed globally and incorporated into clinical practice guidelines and training curricula. He has been instrumental to the development and/or the assessment of other obesity and metabolic interventions, including the adjustable intragastric balloon, duodenal-jejunal bypass liner, duodenal mucosal resurfacing, aspiration therapy, gastric plication platforms, and EUS-guided pancreatic gene therapy. He has also studied the mechanisms of action and metabolic impacts of these procedures.
Beyond individual procedures, Dr. Thompson has made sustained contributions to the development, evaluation, and clinical integration of advanced endoluminal platforms and enabling technologies designed to expand the technical capabilities of therapeutic endoscopy. His work has spanned early NOTES-era multitasking systems, hybrid endoscopic platforms aimed at improving triangulation and tissue manipulation, and more recent assessments of fully robotic endoluminal systems. In parallel, he developed and validated simulation-based procedural models to support objective platform assessment, shorten learning curves, and facilitate safe dissemination of complex endoluminal interventions. These efforts include the development of the Thompson Endoscopic Skills Trainer (TEST Box), as well as additional procedure-specific simulators for advanced endoscopic interventions, which have been used for both technology evaluation and structured skills acquisition. Collectively, this work has focused on reducing technical barriers to advanced endoscopic procedures while promoting reproducibility, safety, and broader clinical adoption.
Training and Mentorship
As Director of the Advanced Endoscopy Fellowship, and the first Foregut and Bariatric Endoscopy Fellowship, at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Dr. Thompson has trained more than 50 advanced endoscopy fellows, many of whom now hold leadership roles in academic medicine, professional societies, and industry. His mentorship has been recognized with national awards from both ASGE and AGA.
Translational Research and Entrepreneurship
As Director of the Developmental Endoscopy Laboratory, Dr. Thompson has led the conception and validation of numerous endoscopic technologies that have progressed from bench to bedside. His laboratory has served as an incubator for device innovation, resulting in multiple start-up company spinouts, first-in-human studies, and pivotal clinical trials.
He is a co-founder of several medical technology companies, including Beacon Endoscopic (later acquired by Medtronic), GI Windows Surgical (incisionless magnetic anastomosis technology), EnteraSense (hyperspectral capsule diagnostics), and Envision Endoscopy (endoscopic suturing platforms). He also founded Everself, a virtual healthcare platform focused on metabolic health. He has served on boards of directors and as a consultant to multiple publicly traded medical technology companies and is a Venture Partner with PUMA Venture Capital.
Professional Society, Editorial, and Academic Leadership
Dr. Thompson has served on numerous committees and held leadership roles within the ASGE, and for other major Gastroenterology and Surgical Societies. He is a founding member of the Natural Orifice Surgery Consortium for Assessment and Research, and a founding co-chair of the Association for Bariatric Endoscopy. He currently serves on the Governing Board of ASGE and is the Society’s incoming Treasurer.
He has played a significant role in editorial leadership as the founding Editor-in-Chief of iGIE, ASGE’s open-access interventional endoscopy journal. He is also the editor of the first comprehensive textbook on bariatric endoscopy, now in its second edition, and has served as an associate editor for Clinical Endoscopy and VideoGIE.
Dr. Thompson has delivered presidential plenary lectures, named lectures, and visiting professorships for major professional societies and academic institutions, addressing the evolution of interventional endoscopy and its recognition as a distinct subspecialty. Through all of these roles, he has helped shape educational standards, influence clinical practice, and guide the safe and responsible adoption of emerging technologies in therapeutic endoscopy.