MAGNIFY

Professor Price is Primary Care Respiratory Society Professor of Primary Care Respiratory Medicine at the University of Aberdeen (UK). He was awarded Fellow of ERS (FERS) in 2016. He is also a member of the World Health Organization (WHO) Allergic Rhinitis and its Impact on Asthma (ARIA) executive committee, the World Allergy Organization (WAO), Committee on Asthma, and the WAO Education Council.

Professor Price was the founding president of the Respiratory Effectiveness Group (http://www.effectivenessevaluation.org/), a not-for-profit, investigator-led initiative which uses an international collaborative approach to explore the optimum role of real-life research in informing clinical guidelines and improving patient care.

Professor Price completed his medical degree at Cambridge University in 1984. He was previously Affiliate Associate Professor in the Department of General Practice at the University of Adelaide, Australia and held an Honorary Chair at the University of East Anglia, UK.

He is extensively involved in respiratory and allergy research; his areas of special interest are the ‘real-life’ effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of interventions, clinical trial design, adherence, and patient attitudes to their disease. He has authored more than 490 peer-reviewed publications and is responsible for approximately US$50 million in research and clinical development grants. He is currently Editor-in-Chief of the journal Pragmatic and Observational Research and member of the editorial board of several respiratory journals, including The Lancet Respiratory Medicine.

Professor James D Chalmers studied medicine in Glasgow before medical training in South East Scotland. in 2008 he was awarded a Medical Research Council Training Fellowship to undertake a PhD into the immunology of bronchiectasis at the MRC Centre for Inflammation Research in Edinburgh. He moved to the University of Dundee in 2011 and established his independent research group in 2012. He was awarded a Wellcome Trust Postdoctoral Fellowship in Molecular Microbiology in 2013 and subsequently was awarded the GSK/British Lung Foundation Chair in Respiratory Research and a Senior Clinical Fellowship from the Scottish Government Chief Scientists Office in 2017.

Professor Chalmers is an active clinician running a specialist clinic for patients with difficult respiratory infections, particularly bronchiectasis, as an honorary consultant physician at Ninewells Hospital.

He has been recognised with a number of prestigious awards including the British Thoracic Society Early Career Investigator Award in 2011, the John Munro Medal for Excellence in Teaching from the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh in 2014, the Romain Pauwels Award for Scientific Achievements from the European Respiratory Society in 2017 and the Patrick Neil Medal from the Royal Society of Edinburgh. In 2021 he received the Cournand Lecture Award from the European Respiratory Society, the Mid-Career Peer Recognition Award from the American Thoracic Society and the Herald Higher Education Outstanding Contribution Award.

He has published more than 350 peer reviewed manuscripts and chaired several international guideline panels including the 2017 European Bronchiectasis Guidelines, the 2020 European Guidelines for ICS use in COPD, the European Respiratory Society Living Guideline for Management of Hospitalized Patients with COVID-19 and the upcoming European Respiratory Society Guidelines for the Management of Bronchiectasis in Adults. He was appointed as Deputy Chief Editor of the European Respiratory Journal and was appointed Chief Editor in 2018. He is current Chair of the Science and Research Committee of the British Thoracic Society and co-Chairs the Scottish Government Chief Scientist Office Translational Clinical Studies Committee.

Nicolas Roche is a Professor of Respiratory Medicine at Paris Descartes University, Head of the Department of Respiratory Medicine, Cochin-Broca-Hôtel-Dieu Hospital Group, Paris, France, and a researcher at Paris Descartes University. He graduated in medicine in 1994 and obtained his PhD in 2003. His major areas of interest are chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), asthma, inhaled therapy, and real-life research, especially focusing on comparative effectiveness studies. Professor Roche is a member of the GOLD Scientific Committee and an executive committee member of the Respiratory Effectiveness Group. He coordinates the production of the French guidelines on COPD and has been involved in the development of the French guidelines on asthma and the education of asthmatic adults.

He is President of the Société de Pneumologie de Langue Française, co-chair of the European Respiratory Society (ERS) 2018 annual congress, guidelines director at ERS, and member of the American Thoracic Society. Professor Roche has authored or co-authored more than 250 book chapters and articles in the respiratory disease arena. He has served as Chief Editor of Revue des Maladies Respiratoires and is Associate Editor of European Respiratory Review and The Clinical Respiratory Journal.

Pete Smith is an Allergy Specialist based in Southport Qld. He did his RACP training Adelaide and a PhD in Molecular Immunology before working in London at the ICH and Great Ormond St in Food Allergy. He is a Professor in Clinical Medicine at Griffith University in Southport Qld, and is doing research in hypersensitivity, allergic rhinitis and food allergy. He is the Medical Director of Allergy Medical in Brisbane. He is a member of ASCIA, EAACI, AAAAI and WAO and has worked on expert committees with each of these organisations. He has been involved with the allergy working party of REG since 2013.

Dr Miravitlles is a Pulmonologist and Senior Researcher at the Vall d’Hebron University Hospital and the Vall d’Hebron Research Institute (VHIR) in Barcelona, Spain.
I obtained my MD at the Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain in 1986 and my PhD at the Universitat Autònoma de Bacelona in 1997. He trained as specialist in Respiratory Medicine at Vall d'Hebron Hospital. Hisprimary research interests include chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), alpha-1-antitrypsin deficiency (AAT), lung defence mechanisms and respiratory infections. Dr Miravitlles served as Secretary General of the Spanish Society of Pneumology and Thoracic Surgery (SEPAR) from 1999 to 2003 and was responsible for International Relationships of SEPAR from 2006 until 2012. Dr Miravitlles was Chair of the Respiratory Infections Group of the European Respiratory Society (ERS) from 2008 to 2011 and was the Guidelines Director of the ERS from 2015 to 2018.
Dr Miravitlles has acted as a consultant and/or chair or author for the development of different international guidelines of COPD, including the American Thoracic Society (ATS)/ERS task force on outcomes in COPD, the ERS/ATS guidelines on diagnostic and treatment of exacerbations of COPD and the ERS statement on management of alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency. Dr Miravitlles is also a consultant of the Spanish Ministry of Health for the development of the National Strategy Against COPD (2009 to present) and coordinator of the Spanish National Guidelines for COPD (GesEPOC from 2012). Dr Miravitlles is the director of the reference center for diagnosis and treatment of AATD in the Hospital Vall d’Hebron and the author of 498 publications listed in PubMed and a h-index of 73 (May 2020)

Dr. Job van Boven is an expert in health economics (e.g. cost-effectiveness, burden of disease) and real-world drug outcomes (e.g. (pharmaco)epidemiology, medication adherence, compliance, persistence), mainly applied to lung diseases (asthma, COPD, TB, lung cancer).

Omar Usmani MB BS, PhD, FHEA, FRCP, FERS, is Professor of Respiratory Medicine at the National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London & Consultant Physician at the Royal Brompton Hospital (RBH) and St Mary's Hospital London. He is Clinical Director of Respiratory Trials at ICRRU (Imperial College Respiratory Research Unit). His Clinical Specialist areas are Asthma, COPD and Chronic Cough. He is Group Leader of the Clinical Research Group within the Airway Disease Section at NHLI and a Principal Investigator. His Research Themes are Inhaled Drug Delivery, Small Airways Physiology, Lung Imaging, Respiratory Pharmacology and Tele-monitoring / E-health. Professor Usmani is an International Authority on Aerosol Science and Inhalation Medicine whose research has fundamentally contributed to the understanding of therapeutic aerosol deposition and clinical effectiveness in inhaled drug delivery to the lungs. He is Co-Director of Imperial's Network of Excellence in Aerosols and Health established in 2021. In 2015, Professor Usmani was awarded one of the highest accolades in Aerosol Science, the Thomas T Mercer Award from the American Association of Aerosol Research (AAAR) and the International Society of Aerosols in Medicine (ISAM), recognising his International Research Excellence in Pharmaceutical Aerosols and Inhalable Materials. He first attended ISAM in 2001 to present his initial findings from his doctoral thesis and 20 years later, in 2021, he was elected by ISAM members to the position President-elect of ISAM. In 2019, Professor Usmani was awarded Fellow of the European Respiratory Society (FERS). Between 2017-20 he was Secretary of Assembly 5, and 2020-23, he was voted by the ERS Assembly 5 members as Head of Assembly 5 (Airway Diseases - Asthma, COPD, Chronic Cough). In 2022, he was a recipient of a prestigious ERS Teaching Award, in recognition of his dedicated contributions to ERS educational content development. Professor Usmani is currently a committee member of the ERS HERMES examination committee in adult respiratory medicine. As Chair of the UK Inhaler Group (UKIG), working with Asthma UK, he oversaw the production of a series of validated videos on inhaler technique and he represents UKIG on the Medicines Optimisation Working Group, part of the Taskforce on Lung Health. He was Chair of the Guidelines Working Party that developed the Inhaler Choice Guideline for UK healthcare professionals in 2017, which was updated in 2020. Professor Usmani was appointed Co-Deputy Director of Imperial's MBBS Phase 1 programme in 2021, is the Head of Phase 1c (Year 3) and Clinical Module Lead of CSI (Clinical Scientific Integration), a flagship Module in Imperial's new MBBS curriculum. He is an external examiner to the University of Southampton MBBS programme. Since 2014, Professor Usmani has organised Outreach Events as part of Imperial's widening participation programme to London secondary and primary school pupils on STEM activities at Imperial College.

Dr Alan Kaplan is a Family Physician working in York Region, Ontario, Canada and the Chairperson of the Family Physician Airways Group of Canada (www.fpagc.com), the Past- Chairperson of the Respiratory Section of the College of Family Physicians of Canada, and Senate member of the International Primary Care Respiratory Group. He co-chaired the Community Standards of COPD program for Health Quality Ontario. He is the medical director of the Pulmonary Rehabilitation program for the local health integration network.

Professor Halpin trained at Oxford & St Thomas Hospital Medical School: completing a D.Phil. in the Department of Human Anatomy, Oxford, before finishing his clinical training at St Thomas. He completed his postgraduate training in respiratory medicine at the Brompton Hospital.

Professor Halpin is a Fellow of Royal College Physicians, Member British Thoracic Society, European Respiratory Society & American Thoracic Society.

Professor Halpin continues to undertake research in respiratory medicine & has published widely. He lectures frequently around the world on COPD.

Until recently Professor Halpin was an Associate Editor of Thorax.

Professor Halpin is one of the 10 Directors of the WHO/NIH Global Initiative for Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) and a member of the GOLD Science Committee.

Professor Halpin was the Chairman and Clinical Expert for the COPD Guideline Development Group of the National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) in the UK.

Until 2015 Professor Halpin was also Respiratory Clinical Lead for the NHS in the South West.

Janwillem Kocks is a practising General Practitioner and Assistant Professor at the department of General Practice and Elderly Care Medicine at the University Medical Center Groningen, the Netherlands.

He chairs the GRIAC primary care research group.

He obtained his medical degree in 2004 at the University of Groningen. In January 2005 he started his PhD research within the Groningen Research Institute on Asthma and COPD (GRIAC) resulting in his thesis “Towards health status guided care in COPD”. He combined his PhD training with the specialist training for general practitioner and graduated as general practitioner in March 2009.

He was visiting senior research fellow at the Medical Research Institute of New Zealand (headed by Professor Richard Beasley) between July 2013 and February 2014. He did a visiting professorship at the Observational & Pragmatic Research Institute (headed by Professor David Price) end of 2017.

Furthermore, he started his company Miegum in 2001, developing Internet-based software applications.

He founded, amongst others, the Dutch AIOTHO network (general practitioners trainees combining their training with research). He developed the Primary Care Respiratory Group (IPCRG) and H2020 FRESH AIR web platforms. He is member of the Dutch COPD Astma Huisartsen Advies Groep (CAHAG) research committee and the IPCRG UNLOCK initiative.

He is board director of the International Primary Care Respiratory Group (IPCRG), secretary of the General Practice and Primary care Group of the European Respiratory Society (ERS), and Board member of the Groninger Research Institute for Asthma and COPD (GRIAC).

His current research focuses on diagnosis and individualised management of both asthma and COPD in primary care.

Katherine qualified from Leeds University in 2000. She originally did a Medicine Rotation acquiring her MRCP before settling into General Practice. She is a GP Partner in Bradford. Over the years Katherine has developed a keen interest in Respiratory medicine and is Respiratory Lead for West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health and Care Partnership. She also works extensively with the Primary Care Respiratory Society. Outside of work Katherine spends most of her time running around after her three children. She also enjoys baking, yoga and has recently rediscovered her love for singing and joined a choir.

Prof Lugogo is an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Department of Medicine at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She is a pulmonologist who specializes in the management of severe asthma. She participates in clinical research in asthma

In 2004, Dr Beeh founded the insaf Respiratory Research Institute in Wiesbaden, where he also holds the position of Medical Director. After receiving the venia legendi for Internal Medicine from the medical faculty of the University of Mainz, Germany in 2004, he also serves as external lecturer (‘Privatdozent’; adjunct Professor) at Mainz University Hospital. Dr Beeh has designed and conducted more than 100 clinical trials in asthma, COPD and allergy, acting as Principal or Coordinating Investigator.

Dr. Beeh received a degree in healthcare "Market Access Management" from the European Business School, Oestrich Winkel, in 2015.

He is the author of the popular international non-fiction book “Die atemberaubende Welt der Lunge” (The breathtaking World of the Lung) published by Random House in October 2018 in multiple countries and translations globally. He is Editor of Pulmonary Therapy, Associate Editor of Advances in Therapy and has published or co-authored over 100 peer-reviewed articles on pathophysiology and pharmacotherapy of chronic airway diseases, including two publications in the New England Journal of Medicine. He has also edited and co-authored a textbook on COPD exacerbations in  2014, and reviews scientific articles for biomedical journals such as the European Respiratory Journal, Lancet Respiratory Medicine, and others. Dr. Beeh is a member of the German Society of Pneumology (DGP) and German Society for Market Access (DFGMA).

Prof Pinnock is a Professor of Primary Care Respiratory Medicine at The University of Edinburgh and a GP in Whitstable, Kent has done much to promote PCRS’ role in research.  Her research interests focus on the delivery of respiratory care within the real-life primary care setting.

Nikolaos (Nikos) Papadopoulos is a world leading expert in allergy and asthma, through work on basic, translational and clinical aspects of the disease, as well as advocacy, pursued continuously for over 20 years. The focus of his research has been the role of infection, in particular rhinovirus (RV) infection, on asthma exacerbations and its interaction with atopy as keystone events of respiratory allergy pathophysiology as well as targets for treatment. Aspiring to develop impactful interventions at the clinical and public health domains, he has contributed to guidelines, real-life research and precision medicine.

He did his medical and doctoral studies at the University of Athens, Greece and postdoctoral studies at the University of Southampton, UK, under the guidance of Sir Stephen Holgate and Sebastian Johnston. He then pursued an academic career in Athens, becoming Professor and Head of the Pediatric Allergy Department. In 2014 he was offered a Professorship at the University of Manchester and he is since running two active groups with overlapping but distinct research directions. From 2021, he has also been appointed Professor of Allergy, Immunity and Infection at OPRI, to pursue real-life research in respiratory medicine.

In the course of this career, he has identified some of the key mechanisms leading from common viral exposures to asthma exacerbations and persistence: his original studies in Southampton conclusively showed that RVs are capable of and infect the bronchial mucosa in humans (J Med Virol, 1999, J Infect Dis, 2000). They then induce local inflammation, initiating the exacerbation cascade (Clin Exp All, 2001), and synergize with house dust mite antigens (Clin Exp All, 2008). He has been the first to show that RVs can become cytotoxic (Respir Res, 2005) and induce viremia (AJRCCM, 2005). Explaining why atopic asthmatics are more susceptible to mild infectious agents than healthy individuals, he demonstrated already in 2002, a Th2 shifted, defective immune response to RV in asthma (Thorax 2002), followed by clinical proof of how atopy skews the duration of post-viral airway hyperresponsiveness (JACI 2005). A milestone finding was the capacity of RV to induce airway remodeling-associated growth factors with functional capacity (JACI 2006, CEA 2008, CTA 2012), suggesting that repeated viral infections may be the drivers of asthma persistence and the transition from wheeze to asthma.

In more recent years, aspiring to address the challenges behind the generation of a vaccine for RV, he has identified a misdirected antibody response as a viral escape mechanism (FASEB J, 2012) and developed a chip capable of measuring subtype RV antibody responses (Nature Comm, 2018), with which he showed that while antibodies against type A and C RVs increase in parallel to the number of infections, there is little if any protection from subsequent events (AJRCCM, 2018). In the context of the EU project PreDicta (PAI, 2018), specific antisense inhibitors against RV infection (DNAzymes) were identified (JACI, 2019), while key molecular events were characterized, such as T-cell deviation induced by RV-induced IL33 (AJRCCM, 2014), the pivotal role of plasmacytoid dendritic cells in exacerbations (JACI 2018), and the functions of IL17 (Mucosal Immunol 2016), IFN-lamda (ERJ, 2017), IL-33 (Sci Rep, 2017), TGF-b (JACI 2017) and ILCs (Sci Rep, 2019).

Working with RVs, he has improved molecular diagnosis (J Virol Meth, 1999), has observed, for the first time, their impact on acute bronchiolitis in infants (AJRCCM, 2002) and in pneumonia in older children (Clin Infect Dis, 2004), has contributed to the development of the first functional RV mouse model (J Gen Virol, 2003) and has generated models evaluating asthma drugs (CEA, 2006, CEA 2009).

In parallel to his basic and translational research work he has remained clinically active, while he has been part of numerous efforts towards optimization of asthma treatment, proposing, among other, an algorithm for pediatric asthma phenotyping (Allergy, 2008), an algorithm for the use of molecular diagnosis to inform allergen immunotherapy for rhinitis and asthma (IAAI, 2013) and has led the 2012 International Consensus on Pediatric Asthma (Allergy, 2012). In the context of the EU project EARIP, he has proposed a stakeholder map to target advocacy actions for asthma research (ERJ, 2017), while he is leading efforts to recognize the value and standardize real-life research in asthma (CTA 2019, ERJ 2019).

He has a passion for education, having supervised more than 20 PhDs, has organized over 100 educational events and has trained doctors in the clinic and researchers in the lab. He is invited speaker at international events more than 30 times a year.

He has participated and/or led several European high-impact projects related to asthma or allergy, from FP5 all the way to Horizon2020. Notably, he joined BIOAIR (FP5, 2000-2004), longitudinally evaluating biomarkers of severe asthma, was among the team that designed and run GA2LEN (FP6, 2004-8), the Global Allergy & Asthma European Network, coordinated “PreDicta” (FP7, 2010-2016), evaluating the post-infectious immune reprogramming and its association with persistence and chronicity of asthma, and is currently the coordinator of the Horizon2020 Future & Emerging Technologies “CURE”, constructing a ‘Eubiosis-Reistatement Therapy’ for asthma (2017-2022).

He has participated in and actively served many international societies, including committees of the ERS and EFA, but most notably EAACI, of which he was President 2013-2015 and the Respiratory Effectiveness Group (REG), of which he was President from 2018-2020.

For his work he has received several international awards, among other, the EAACI Clemens von Pirquet Award (2019), the PhARF award (2010), the Klosterfrau International Award for Research in Pediatric Asthma (2003) and the ERS Annual Award for Pediatric Respiratory Research in Europe (2004). Overall, he has published over 500 papers, receiving more than 38000 citations and an h-index of 84 (Google Scholar).

He is Editor-in-Chief of Frontiers in Allergy, Associate Editor of Clinical & Translational Allergy and member of the Editorial Boards of several scientific journals.

His latest research direction has led to the establishment of a metagenomics laboratory in Manchester that is currently exploring the role of the respiratory virome and metagenome in asthma activity and exacerbations. In Athens he is evaluating potential interventions against rhinoviruses using microRNAs, while at the international front, he has organized PeARL (Pediatric Asthma in Real-Life), a think tank that aims to contribute in the everyday management of the disease and has evaluated the impact of the COVID pandemic on pediatric asthma patients (JACI:In Practice, 2020).

Dr. Kostikas is Respiratory Physician with long-standing clinical and research experience in different Greek and international setting (academic, clinical, research and industry), with excellent skills in communication, patient management, publication planning and study design and execution.

Dr. Kostikas has been involved in several posts of the European Respiratory Society (ERS), including HERMES Examination Committee and the role of Learning Resources Director. Dr. Kostikas’ research activities focus on asthma and COPD (biomarkers, phenotyping, comorbidities and exacerbations). Dr. Kostikas is a member of the Editorial Board of PLoS ONE, and peer reviewer for all major respiratory journals. Dr. Kostikas has more than 170 publications in PubMed (over 3,300 citations and h-index 29) and contributed several chapters to medical textbooks, focusing on asthma, COPD and biomarkers.

Dr Eve Denton is a Respiratory, Sleep and Allergy Physician with a special interest in severe asthma who combines clinical work and research at the Alfred and St Vincent’s Hospitals in Melbourne. After finishing her M.B.B.S(Hons) in 2008 she completed Basic Physician Training at the Alfred Hospital and undertook Respiratory and Sleep Medicine training at the Alfred Hospital and St Vincent’s Hospitals in Melbourne, qualifying as a Respiratory and Sleep Physician in 2016. During her basic and advanced training she completed a Masters of Public Health at Monash University focusing on epidemiology, biostatistics and clinical research and culminating in a minor thesis in lung cancer epidemiology. After finishing her specialty training she completed a two year clinical and research Fellowship at the Alfred Hospital focusing on Allergy and Asthma. She has an interest in inducible laryngreal obstruction and performs nasal endoscopy as well as assisting in setting up the Alfred Hospital Exercise-induced Laryngeal Obstruction (EILO) Service. She is currently undertaking a full time PhD in the area of Severe Asthma as well as her clinical duties and has published widely in peer reviewed journals.