Dr. Kaplan is the former Director of the Obesity, Metabolism and Nutrition Institute and Massachusetts General Hospital Associate Professor of Medicine. He is one of the founding members of the American Board of Obesity Medicine.

Dr. Kaplan currently serves as chair of the Obesity, Metabolism and Nutrition Section of the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA), chair of the Bariatric Surgery Section and chair of the Clinical Committee of the Obesity Society, and is the Director of the Blackburn Course in Obesity.

Dr. Kaplan’s clinical expertise is in the areas of obesity medicine, gastroenterology and liver disease. The author of more than 150 medical and scientific papers, he has a special interest in the causes and complications of obesity and the development of new and more effective preventive strategies and therapies for this problem. His clinical research is focused on identifying clinically relevant subtypes of obesity, identifying predictors of outcome of obesity therapies, and exploring novel, combination therapies for obesity and its complications. His basic research is focused on the physiological and molecular mechanisms of gastrointestinal regulation of body weight and metabolic function, and his group has pioneered the development and use of rodent models of weight loss surgery and gastrointestinal devices to explore these mechanisms.

Dr. Kaplan graduated from Harvard University and received his medical degree and doctorate in molecular biology from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University. Dr. Kaplan completed an internship and residency in internal medicine and a fellowship in gastroenterology at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School and a fellowship in genetics at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.