Paul O'Brien is Emeritus Professor of Surgery at Monash University after a 19 year period as Head of the University's Department of Surgery at the Alfred Hospital. His current principal areas of clinical and research interest are in the morbidity of obesity and the health benefits of weight loss. He founded the Centre for Obesity Research and Education (CORE) at Monash University in 2004 and is now the Emeritus Director. He is Head of the Centre for Bariatric Surgery in Melbourne. This is the most active clinical service for the surgical treatment of obesity in Australia. He is also the National Medical Director of the American Institute of Gastric Banding, a multicenter clinical facility based in Texas. He is Past President of the Obesity Surgery Society of Australia and New Zealand (1997 - 2004) and a past member of Council of the International Federation for the Surgery of Obesity. He is the Advisory Editor of the journal "Obesity Surgery ". He has published more than 250 papers in the medical literature and  has been actively involved in conducting postgraduate courses and workshops on obesity and its treatments in Australia, Europe, USA, Asia-Pacific countries, South America and Canada for the past 15 years.