Professor Richard van Zyl-Smit is a consultant pulmonologist at Groote Schuur Hospital, Cape Town, South Africa, and Deputy Head of the Division of Pulmonology at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. He is a principal researcher at the University of Cape Town Lung Institute and is President Elect of the South African Thoracic Society. His major clinical and research interests are airway diseases, specifically: asthma and COPD with a focus on tobacco, household air pollution, electronic cigarettes, and their impact on pulmonary immune responses (to pneumococcal and mycobacterial infection) and the development of COPD. He has over 80 peer reviewed publications and he has additionally been involved in industry sponsored research for over 13 years across a spectrum of pulmonary disorders. He serves on the American Thoracic Society International Health Committee and is passionate about teaching, training, sustainability and mental health in health care. He is the South African representative on the GOLD assembly and a GINA global ambassador. After qualifying as a pulmonologist, he completed a basic science PhD investigating the effects of tobacco smoke and nicotine on human pulmonary defence mechanisms to tuberculosis infection.

Dr Harly Greenberg is Chief of the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine, Department of Medicine at North Shore University Hospital and Long  Island Jewish Medical Center, Northwell Health in New York and Associate Director of the Northwell Health Lung Institute, Medical Director of the Northwell Sleep Disorders Center and  Professor of Medicine Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra-Northwell.  

Dr Harly Greenberg is a recognized expert in sleep medicine and has helped to advance the field of sleep medicine as an investigator or co-investigator in multiple clinical research trials. His research has contributed to our understanding of the cardiovascular consequences of obstructive sleep apnea. In addition, Dr. Greenberg was a co-investigator in a major international clinical trial that established the efficacy of continuous positive airway pressure therapy as an important treatment for patients with milder forms of obstructive sleep apnea. His work has also contributed to the development of new therapies for sleep apnea and other sleep disorders. He is also a co-investigator on a research protocol on central neural correlates of respiratory sensation and dyspnea, funded by NHLBI.

Mario Cazzola is Honorary Professor of Respiratory Medicine at the University of Rome ‘Tor Vergata’, Rome, Italy. He founded Therapeutic Advances in Respiratory Diseases and served as the Editor-in-Chief for Pulmonary Pharmacology & Therapeutics, and for COPD – Research and Practice. He is Deputy Editor for Respiratory Medicine, Section Editor for Frontiers in Drug Safety and Regulation, and an Associate Editor for Respiratory Research, Current Research in Pharmacology and Drug Discovery, Clinical Investigation, and The Open Respiratory Medicine Journal, and an Editor for British Journal of Pharmacology. He is the author or co-author of almost 754 scientific papers. His H-index is 74. According to Expertscape (November 2022), he is the top-rated expert in COPD, obstructive lung diseases and bronchodilator agents worldwide. He was the Chairman of the Airway Pharmacology and Treatment Group and Co-chairman of the ERS/ATS Task Force “Outcomes for COPD pharmacological trials: from lung function to biomarkers”. He has received the 2015 Lifetime Achievement Award from the same scientific society. He was a member of the steering committee of the Airway Disorders Network and served as Governor of the Italian Chapter at the American College Chest Physicians.

He is the Chairman of the Southern Europe Chapter at Interasma, and the Chair of the Med COPD Forum. His research has mainly been focused on the pharmacology of airway diseases, particularly the use of bronchodilators and obstructive lung diseases.

Professor Sir Peter Barnes FMedSci, FRS is Professor of Thoracic Medicine at the National Heart and Lung Institute and was Head of Respiratory Medicine at Imperial College London 1987-2017. He qualified at Cambridge and Oxford Universities and trained in London. He has published >1500 peer-review papers on asthma, COPD (h-index 230) and has written/edited >50 books. He has been the most highly cited respiratory researcher in the world over the last 20 years. He was President of the ERS in 2013/2014 and was knighted for services to respiratory science in 2023.

Dr. Rodrigo Athanazio is an assistant and research physician of the Pulmonology Department at University of São Paulo, developing academic, scientific and assistance activities. His activities include regular assistance of patients with airway diseases in three specialized outpatient clinics of severe asthma, bronchiectasis and adult cystic fibrosis.
Dr. Athanazio earned his degree in Medicine in 2005 from the Medical School of the Federal University of Bahia. He performed his fellowship in Internal Medicine at the Federal University of São Paulo (2006-2008) and, then, Pulmonology at the University of São Paulo (2008-2010). Subsequently, he performed a 2-year specialization in obstructive lung diseases and, then, obtained in 2016 his PhD in Pulmonology at the same institution. This PhD involved a systematic assessment of patients with difficult to control asthma followed in a specialized clinic published in 2016 at BMC Pulmonary Medicine.

Dr. Rakesh K. Chawla is Senior Consultant in Respiratory Medicine, Critical Care and Sleep Disorders at the Department of Respiratory Medicine at Jaipur Golden Hospital, the Saroj Super Specialty Hospital, Delhi and Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Institute, Delhi. He is Chairman of the Pulmonary Foundation, and a member of the Governing Council of both the Indian College of Allergy and Applied Immunology and the Indian College of Bronchoscopy. He has received the Appreciation Award from the former President of India, Hon’ble Late Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam sir. During his long career, he has published various guidelines for Chest physicians, 78 articles and authored 4 book chapters. He has also presented over 100 papers at national and international conferences.

Dr. Michal Shteinberg heads the Bronchiectasis and Adult Cystic Fibrosis (CF) Unit in the Pulmonology Institute and CF Center in Carmel Medical Center and Clalit Health Services in Haifa, Israel. She is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology. Her research interests are bronchiectasis and its overlap with other airway diseases, mainly rhinosinusitis, as well as non-tuberculous mycobacteria (NTM)-pulmonary disease and other airway infections. In adult CF she is focused on airway infection and in reproductive issues in women with CF. Dr. Shteinberg is an Editorial Board member for the European Respiratory Journal (ERJ) and member of the Executive Committee of the Israeli Society for Tuberculosis and Mycobacterial Diseases. Dr. Shteinberg is also a member of the European Multicentre Bronchiectasis Audit and Research Collaboration (EMBARC) management board and heads patient activities and education work package, working closely with the European Lung Foundation Patient Advisory Group. Dr. Shteinberg received her MD and a PhD in Biochemistry from the Technion- Israel Institute of Technology. Having trained in Internal Medicine and Pulmonology, she then specialized in Adult CF and Bronchiectasis, including a fellowship in Adult CF and Bronchiectasis at Queens University, Belfast, UK.

Dr. Nik Hirani is a Reader and PI in the MRC Centre for Inflammation Research, Edinburgh and Associate Medical Director at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. He leads a regional interstitial lung disease service and his research interests include early phase lung fibrosis clinical trials, exploratory biomarkers and macrophage biology in lung inflammation and repair. Nik qualified from Nottingham University, clinically trained in respiratory medicine and acquired Wellcome Trust and GSK research training fellowships.

Bruce Michael Prenner is Associate Clinical Professor in the Department of Pediatrics, Division of Allergy, Immunology and Rheumatology, University of California San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine, La Jolla, California. He is board certified in allergy and immunology as well as pediatrics. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology and of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology. He has served as Past President of the San Diego Allergy Society. He has conducted clinical trials in the areas of allergic rhinitis, asthma, urticaria, atopic dermatitis and chronic cough since 1976. He has published 145 articles and abstracts and has been an invited speaker in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. He is a member of the Clinical Respiratory Network and a certified clinical investigator.

Dr. Prenner attended Brooklyn College and received his bachelor’s degree there in June of 1966 where he graduated suma cum laude. He attended the State University of Buffalo School of Medicine from 1966 to 1970 where he received his medical degree. He completed his internship in pediatrics at Babies Hospital, part of the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City from 1970 to 1971. He served from 1971 to 1973 as a Physician-in-Charge of pediatrics at the United States Public Health Service Outpatient Clinic in San Diego, California. He was a resident in pediatrics from 1973 to 1974 in the Department of Pediatrics at UCSD School of Medicine. His fellowship in allergy and immunology was completed in the Division of Allergy and Immunology, Department of Pediatrics, UCSD in 1976.

His research interests include clinical trials, biomarker discovery, the lung microbiome and host immune response in the pathogenesis of IPF and clinical trials in fibrotic lung disease. He is an associate editor for American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. He has authored over 260 papers and book chapters on IPF.

Dr. Anoop M. Nambiar is an Associate Professor of Medicine and founding director of the Center for Interstitial Lung Disease at the University of Texas Health San Antonio. Born and raised in New Jersey, he attended college at Rutgers University, medical school at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, internal medicine residency and completed pulmonary/critical care fellowship at the University of Michigan in 2009. Following a locum tenens year in New Zealand, he joined the faculty at UT Health San Antonio in 2010.

Over the past eight years, Dr. Nambiar’s clinical and research efforts include: the first dedicated ILD/IPF clinic at UT Health San Antonio in 2011; development of a fortnightly multidisciplinary ILD/IPF conference in 2014; active past and present research program with involvement in a number of important multicenter investigator-initiated and industry-sponsored clinical trials; and community outreach as medical director of the San Antonio PF Support Group with a semi-annual “Free ILD Clinic,” the only one of its kind.

Dr Margaret A Pisani is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Yale University School of Medicine. Dr Pisani received a BS in physics from Iona College and an MS in biomedical engineering from New Jersey Institute of Technology. She received her MD from Temple University in 1994 and an MPH from Yale University in 2001. She did her internship, residency, and pulmonary and critical care fellowship at Yale University. In addition, she served as Chief Medical Resident at Yale. Dr Pisani then joined the faculty in the Department of Medicine, Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine at Yale University School of Medicine. She has held several administrative and leadership roles at Yale including Associate Winchester Clinic Director, Director of Respiratory Care and Pulmonary & Critical Care Fellowship Program Director. Her research is based in the intensive care unit where she studies delirium and sleep in critical illness. She also studies the care of older ICU patients and functional and cognitive outcomes after critical illness. In addition, she collaborates on research of interventional pulmonary procedures, lung cancer screening and pleural disease.

Dr. Carolyn M. D’Ambrosio is the Program Director for the Harvard-Brigham and Women’s Hospital Fellowship in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine and is Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. D’Ambrosio received her MS and MD from The George Washington University School of Medicine in 1988 and 1991 respectively. She completed her residency in Internal Medicine at Strong Memorial Hospital, University of Rochester, Rochester NY and was selected and served as Chief Medical Resident there as well. Her Pulmonary and Critical Care training was done at Yale University School of Medicine and included subspecialty focus on Sleep Medicine. Following her fellowship, she became an Instructor and then Assistant Professor of Medicine at Yale University School of Medicine. In 2001, Dr. D’Ambrosio, was recruited to New England Medical Center as Director, The Center for Sleep Medicine and was both Assistant and then Associate Professor of Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine. While at Tufts, she also served as Chair, Ethics Committee from 2007 until she went to Brigham and Women’s Hospital in 2015. She has been awarded Best Teacher from both medical students and residents during her years on Faculty and received a Distinguished Teaching Award from the Pulmonary Division at Tufts Medical Center prior to her departure from there. In addition to teaching and clinical work, Dr. D’Ambrosio has conducted research in the area of Sleep and Menopause, Sleep and Breathing in Infants, and participated as the sleep medicine expert in two systemic reviews on home sleep apnea testing and fixed versus autotitrating CPAP.

Physiotherapist. PhD in Physiotherapy from the University of São Paulo (UNICID). Master’s Degree in Health Sciences from the Federal University of Amapá (UNIFAP). Specialization by the Faculty of Macapá (FAMA). Bachelor of Physical Therapy from Seama College. Member of the Editorial Board of Revista Estação Científica. Member of the Editorial Board of Editora Universitária UNIFAP. Professor and Researcher at UNIFAP. Responsible for the Laboratory of Cardio / Pulmonology at UNIFAP. Research interests include pleural affections, pleural effusion and thoracic drainage in critical patients.

Dr Carlin currently practices pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. He is a graduate of the Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine and completed his internship/residency/chief residency at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh. He then completed a pulmonary and critical care medicine fellowship at the University of California San Diego.

He is currently employed by Pittsburgh Critical Care Associates and by Sleep Medicine and Lung Health Consultants. He is a senior staff physician at UPMC Altoona Regional Medical Center where he attends in the critical care units. He is the Medical Director for both Lifeline Sleep Disorders Centers as well as Lifeline Pulmonary Rehabilitation Centers.

Dr Carlin is a former Training Program Director for pulmonary and critical care medicine fellows at Allegheny General Hospital. He expanded the training program during his tenure to include a training program in critical care medicine. He is also a former Past President of the National Association for Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Training Program Directors.

Dr Carlin has been active in other national and regional organizations during his career. He is a Past President of the American Association of Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Rehabilitation (AACVPR) and is a former Associate Editor for the Journal of Cardiac and Pulmonary Rehabilitation and Prevention. He is the current Chairperson of the National Lung Health Education Program (NLHEP) and is a member of the board of the National Board for Respiratory Care (NBRC).

He is the former Chair of the Education Committee for the American College of Chest Physicians and is a current member of two networks within that organization (Pulmonary Function, Physiology, and Rehabilitation Network and the Interdisciplinary Team Network). He is a former board member of the CHEST Foundation and was the Program Chairperson for the CHEST 2007 annual meeting. He is the former Chair for the Training and Transition Committee for the American Thoracic Society and is the chair-elect for the Pulmonary Rehabilitation Assembly annual meeting.

Dr Carlin has been actively involved in scholarly activities in the field primarily with COPD, 30-day readmission rates, and pulmonary rehabilitation. He was a member of the 1997 and 2007 Evidence Based Guidelines for Pulmonary Rehabilitation (a conjoint project of the ACCP and the AACVPR) and has been a participant in recently released guidelines (ATS/ERS) for pulmonary rehabilitation as well as the timed walk test. He is the current co-Chair for the upcoming 4th edition of the Pulmonary Rehabilitation Guidelines for the AACVPR. He has coauthored many papers including those in the field of core competencies for pulmonary rehabilitation professionals, comorbidities for COPD, and roles and responsibilities for the pulmonary rehabilitation medical director. He is also a participant in the upcoming individual certification program for pulmonary rehabilitation professionals.

He has helped to develop two successful 30-day readmission reduction programs for patients who have been hospitalized with COPD exacerbations in the western Pennsylvania area. These programs have resulted in a decrease in the 30-day readmission rates for patients with COPD and heart disease by 25%. He is currently interested in the development of educational programs for professionals in the fields of performance of spirometry and the use of devices for inhaled medication delivery.

Nicola A Hanania, MD, MS is Associate Professor of Medicine in the Section of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine and Director of the Airways Clinical Research Center at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, USA. He completed his medical training at the University of Jordan followed by residency in internal medicine and a fellowship in pulmonary medicine at the University of Toronto, Canada. He subsequently completed a fellowship in critical care medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, where he later earned a master’s degree in clinical investigation.

As a Fellow of the American College of Chest Physicians, Dr Hanania has served on the Board of Regents and as Chair of the Clinical Pulmonary, Airways Networks and Council of Networks for this organization. He has been on the Board of Trustees of the Chest Foundation since 2012. In addition, he is a current member of the Health Policy Committee of the American Thoracic Society, the European Respiratory Society, the Society of Critical Care Medicine and a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. He has served on several guideline and workshop panels including the ACP/ATS/ACCP/ERS Clinical Practice guidelines on COPD and the CTS/ACCP COPD exacerbations guidelines.

Dr Hanania has received multiple awards including the ACCP’s Distinguished Scholar in Respiratory Health, ACCP Humanitarian Award, Career Investigator Award (K23) from the NIH, Fulbright and Jaworski’s Faculty Excellence Award for Teaching and Evaluation and the Award for Excellence in Teaching from the Department of Medicine at Baylor. Baylor also named him to the Academy of Distinguished Educators for 2003–2010. Dr Hanania is a Deputy Editor of Respiratory Medicine and is Associate Editor of Therapeutic Advances in Respiratory Disease, Current Opinion in Pulmonary Medicine (Asthma Section) and Pulmonary Pharmacology and Therapeutics.

Dr Hanania’s research interests focus on the pharmacology and management of asthma and COPD. He has published more than 200 peer-reviewed papers, book chapters, editorials and reviews on these topics. He is actively involved in clinical trials investigating novel treatments. He is Principal Investigator for the American Lung Association Airway Clinical Research Center at Baylor College of Medicine, as well as Principal Investigator or Co-Investigator in several clinical trials in asthma and COPD. He has been invited and has lectured widely at local, regional, national and international meetings.

Dr Gozal is currently Chairman of Child Health at the University of Missouri School of Medicine and Pediatrician-in-Chief at Missouri Women’s and Children’s Hospital, Columbia, MO. He was previously the Herbert T Abelson Professor at the University of Chicago, and he also held the title of Pritzker Scholar. He received his MD from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, completed his pediatric residency at the Haifa Medical Center in Israel, and then spent 2 years in Cameroon, West Africa, developing rural healthcare networks, for which he received the title of “Knight of the Order of Merit”. He then completed his pediatric pulmonology and sleep medicine training at Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles in 1993, and joined the faculty at the University of Southern California and UCLA. In 1994, he moved to Tulane University, and was appointed tenured Professor and Constance Kaufman Endowed Chair in Pediatric Pulmonology Research. From 1999–2009, Dr Gozal was at the University of Louisville as the Children’s Hospital Foundation Chair for Pediatric Research, Distinguished University Scholar, Director of the Kosair Children’s Research Institute, and Chief of the Division of Pediatric Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Medicine Fellowship Program, both of which were recognized as programs of distinction by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. In 2009, Dr Gozal joined the University of Chicago as Chairman of the Department of Pediatrics and Physician-in-Chief of Comer Children’s Hospital.

Dr Gozal’s research interests include projects such as gene and cellular regulation in hypoxia and sleep disruption, murine models of sleep disorders, and genomic and proteomic approaches to clinical and epidemiological aspects of sleep in children.

He is the current President of the American Thoracic Society, was a member of the Board of Directors of the Sleep Research Society 2014–2016, is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Child Science, Deputy Editor for the journals Sleep and Frontiers in Neurology, and a regular member of the NNRS study section at NIH. He has been the recipient of the ATS Amberson Lecture in 2002, and most recently was awarded the William C. Dement Academic Achievement Award by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine in 2013 and the 2016 Lifetime Achievement Award of the National Sleep Foundation. His research work is supported by grants from the NIH, he has published >575 peer-reviewed original articles, >130 book chapters and reviews, 3 books, and >850 scientific abstracts, and has extensively lectured all over the world.

Ian Adcock is Professor of Respiratory Cell & Molecular Biology and Head of the Molecular Cell Biology Group at the National Heart & Lung Institute, Imperial College London. He also holds an honorary research position at the Royal Brompton Hospital enabling him to translate the basic research activities into the clinical environment.

Professor Adcock obtained a degree in Biochemistry & Physiology from the University of London and later a PhD in Pharmacology from St Thomas”s Hospital London on the role of nuclear receptors on sexual dimorphic patterns in the rat. He performed postdoctoral training at the MRC Brain Metabolism Unit with Professors Tony Harmar and George Fink and in the Protein Science Laboratory at St Georges’ Hospital with Professor Brian Austen. He joined Professor Peter Barnes at the National Heart & Lung Institute in 1990 to undertake research on the effects of corticosteroids on inflammatory mediators in asthma and COPD. This remains his major research area along with a long-term interest in the mechanisms underlying relative steroid insensitivity in severe asthma and COPD.

Professor Adcock is an internationally recognized scientist in the field of airways disease and inflammation. He has authored and co-authored over 230 scientific articles and has served on the editorial boards of several journals. He has worked as an expert member on national grant-awarding organizations including UK MRC, US NIH, Australian NHMRC and Canadian MRC. He has served on the ERS Council and is currently a member of the ERS Scientific Program Committee and Head of the ERS Airway Pharmacology and Treatment Section.

Professor Adcock is a principal investigator in the Medical Research Council/Asthma UK Centre in Allergic Mechanisms of Asthma and in the Wellcome Trust Respiratory Infections Centre. His research is currently funded by grants from the Medical Research Council, Wellcome Trust, BHF, Royal Society, EU, BBSRC, EPSRC and Industrial collaborators. He is also a principal investigator in the European consortium UBIOPRED on mechanisms of severe asthma that is funded through the Innovative Medicine Initiative of the European Union and EFPIA.

Nikolaos Panagiotopoulos MD PhD is a consultant Thoracic Surgeon at University College London Hospitals UCLH. His main interest is minimally invasive Thoracic Surgery including Robotic Thoracic Surgery. He has 37 publications in peer-reviewed journals, 3 chapters in books and significant number of national and international presentations in minimally invasive Thoracic Surgery.

Andrea Aliverti is associate Professor at the Department Electronics, Information and Bioengineering (DEIB), Politecnico di Milano where he teaches Sensors and Instrumentation Technologies and Bioengineering of the Respiratory System. Since 2014, he is the chairman of the PhD Programme in Bioengineering at the Politecnico di Milano. He is responsible of Respiratory Analysis Lab at the Biomedical Technology Laboratory. His actual main research interests include the bioengineering of the respiratory system, physiological measurements; biomedical instrumentation and sensors; lung imaging (multivolume registration for the functional analysis of lung by CT and MRI, ultrasonography of the diaphragm; in-vivo microscopic imaging of alveolar and pulmonary vessels geometry), electrical impedance spectroscopy and monitoring of physiological variables by means of wearable unobtrusive sensors.

He is author of 130 papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals, 8 book chapters, editor of 3 books, inventor in 13 patents. He is member of the editorial board of several scientific journals and an active member of the European Respiratory Society (ERS). Currently, he is secretary of the Assembly “Clinical Physiology, Sleep and Pulmonary Circulation”, member of the ERS Education Council, Chairman of the ERS Task Force ‘Functional evaluation of lung and airways’.

Prof. Spanevello trained and developed his career in one of the most prestigious and competitive Italian University, the University of Pavia, and spent time as a visiting clinical research fellow with Dr Philip Ind and Prof. Neil Pride at Hammersmith Hospital in London in 1994-1995, where he performed important studies on induced sputum analysis in asthma.

Since then he’s been involved in a variety of clinical and translational research on the pathogenesis and clinical aspects of allergic respiratory diseases, asthma and COPD. He has a comprehensive approach to research on asthma and COPD, particularly with human studies to explore the role of inflammation (and particularly allergic inflammation) assessed with non-invasive methods, particularly sputum.

In addition to his academic activities in the University of Insubria, Varese, he has taken major managerial responsibilities by becoming Director of the Department of Respiratory Diseases of the Maugeri Foundation in Italy, where he is the Director of the Respiratory Unit of Tradate (Varese), but also of the 8 Respiratory Units of the Maugeri Foundation, ie a department of more than 200 beds.

He is the Editor of the Monaldi Archives of Chest Diseases, which is the leading respiratory journal in Italy.

He is a very active member of the ERS and is currently Secretary of the Airway Disease Assembly.

He is invited to actively participate with lectures or as a chair in more than 30 national and international conferences each year and is often interviewed by local and national newspapers and TV programs to speak on topics related to respiratory diseases.

His primary research interests include asthma, rhinitis, epidemiology and environmental risk factors for asthma and other allergic diseases, from pre-school age to the elderly.
He serves on various medical committees and is a member of several professional societies, international and national, including the Portuguese Society of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, where he served as President from 2005 until 2013. Dr. Morais-Almeida is the Vice-president of the Portuguese Association of Asthmatic and Allergic Patients, and has acted as Vice-president of the Latin American Allergy, Asthma and Immunology Society – SLAAI (2013-2015), President of the South European Allergy Societies – SEAS (2011), Vice-president of the Lung Portuguese Foundation (2010-2012), President of the Luso-Brazilian Society of Allergy and Clinical Immunology – SLBAIC (2009-2010) and President of the Allergy and Clinical Immunology Board of the Portuguese Medical Association (2003-2006).
He act as a consultant of several departments of the Portuguese Ministry of Health for the development of the national strategy namely against asthma and anaphylaxis. He published more than 150 articles in peer-reviewed national and international medical journals largely related to asthma, rhinitis and epidemiology.

Prof. Fabio Midulla is Associate Professor of Paediatrics at the “Sapienza” University of Rome. He has been working in Pediatric pulmonology since the last 30 years. He is the author of more than 80 publications in peer-review journals. Prof. Midulla’s main activities in research are on Bronchoalveolar lavage in children and on acute bronchiolitis. He is the head of the paediatric Assembly of the European Respiratory Society.

Dr. Trow received his A.B. degree from Bowdoin College graduating summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa with highest honors in Biochemistry in 1982. He subsequently matriculated at Dartmouth Medical School, earning his MD in 1986 after being elected to the Alpha Omega Alpha Society. After a year of internship at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia he completed his internal medicine training at The New York Hospital of the Cornell University Medical College in 1989. After a brief period as a junior faculty member at Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons in the Emergency Medicine Division, he pursued his fellowship training at Yale University in the Section of Pulmonary and Critical Care finishing in 1993. After 9 years of service at Danbury Hospital, where he was an integral member of the house staff teaching core faculty, he was recruited to establish and build the Pulmonary Hypertension Center at Winthrop-University Hospital in Mineola, NY, an affiliate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook from 2002-2005 before being recruited to due the same at Yale University School of Medicine where he currently holds the title of Director of the Pulmonary Vascular Disease Program as well as Associate Professor of Medicine.

Dr. Trow has won a number of teaching awards including Attending of the Year at Danbury Hospital as well as Attending of the Year at Winthrop-University Hospital and has been appointed Fellow of the American College of Physicians and the American College of Chest Physicians. He served as a Deputy Editor of The Proceedings of the American Thoracic Society and served on the editorial board of Clinical Pulmonary Medicine. He is an invited reviewer for such journals as Annals of Internal Medicine, Chest, the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, Heart & Lung, Southern Medical Journal, Clinical Pulmonary Medicine, and the Annals of the American Thoracic Society, Drug Design, Development and Therapy,Respiratory Medicine and Thorax. Dr. Trow also served on the Steering Committee for the Pulmonary Vascular Disease Network for the American College of Chest Physicians from 2006-2013, as well as on the Steering Committee for the Scleroderma Foundation’s National Echocardiography Education Campaign. He was recently appointed to the Scientific Leadership Council of the Pulmonary Hypertension Association and was appointed to the ACCP Task force to update the ACCP Evidence-Based Guidelines in the Pharmcologic Therapy of Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension.

Dr. Trow’s research interests are in the arena of clinical biomarkers in pulmonary hypertension. He has published widely in such journals as Chest, the Proceedings of the American Thoracic Society, Clinical Pulmonary Medicine, the Journal of Biological Chemistry, Heart&Lung: The Journal of Acute Critical Care, the Journal of Immunology, the American Journal of Physiology, the American Journal of Medicine ,Clinic in Chest Medicine, Vascular Health and Risk Management, Therapeutic Advances in Respiratory Disease, Respiratory Medicine and Thorax.

Marc Miravitlles is a pulmonologist working in clinical research in the Hospital Universitari Vall d’Hebron in Barcelona, Spain. His primary research interests include chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), chronic bronchitis, alpha-1-antitrypsin deficiency (AAT), lung defence mechanisms and respiratory infections.
He serves on various medical committees and is a member of numerous professional societies, including the Spanish Society of Pneumology and Thoracic Surgery (SEPAR), where he served as Secretary from 1999 until 2003 and as responsible for International Relationships from 2006 to 2011. Dr. Miravitlles has acted as chair of the Respiratory Infections group of the European Respiratory Society (ERS) from 2008 to 2011. He has acted as a consultant for the development of different international guidelines of COPD, such as the American Thoracic Society/European Respiratory Society task force on outcomes in COPD. He was also a consultant of the Spanish Ministry of Health for the development of the National Strategy against COPD (2009 onwards). He is the coordinator of the Spanish National Guidelines for COPD (GesEPOC 2012 and update 2014). Dr Miravitlles has published numerous articles in a number of peer-reviewed international medical journals largely related to COPD, infection in COPD and alpha-1-antitrypsin deficiency.