Professor Victor Aboyans is currently the head of department of cardiology at Dupuytren’s University Hospital in Limoges, France. After medical school in Nice, he obtained his MD in 1993 at University of Limoges and his PhD in public health sciences in 2001 at University of Toulouse, France. He stayed at the University of California, San Diego, during a one-year post-doc fellowship. His main fields of interest are cardiovascular prevention and vascular medicine, especially focused on peripheral artery diseases and the aorta, as well as the vascular markers of atherosclerosis and hypertension. He is the director of the cardiovascular prevention and screening programme in his hospital. In 2011, he has co-chaired the ESC guidelines on peripheral arterial diseases, and chaired in 2012 the AHA?s scientific statement on measurement of the ankle-brachial index, and in 2014 the ESC guidelines for the diagnosis and management of aortic diseases. He is the current president of Vascular/Thrombosis working group of the French Society of Cardiology, and member of the nucleus of the ESC working group of Peripheral Circulation. He has authored almost 125 scientific papers and book chapters.

Dr. Costas Tsioufis, Professor of Cardiology in the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, is in charge of the Hypertension Unit of the First Cardiology Clinic, Hippokration Hospital, Athens, Greece. Clinical Training: In Interventional Cardiology and Hypertension at the University of Athens, Greece and later at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Georgetown University, Washington DC, USA. He has published widely on hypertensive disease, cardiorenal disease, atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease and interventional cardiology and he is involved in major clinical trials regarding novel interventional therapies of hypertension and particularly renal denervation. He has >360 publications in peer-reviewed Journals (H-index> 40). He is co-editor of the book ‘’interventional therapies of secondary and essential hypertension’’ and he has contributed with more than 25 Chapters in Books. He is Member of the Editorial Board and Reviewer in major Cardiology, Hypertension.

Prof. Lorenzo Corbetta is Associate Professor of Respiratory Diseases in the Department of Experimental and Clinical Medicine at the University of Florence since 2005. He is also the Director and Coordinator of the Master course in “Interventional Pulmonology” at the University of Florence, since 2009. This course is organized in collaboration with University Hospital of Careggi and is a unique form of training in interventional pulmonology in Europe. He published extensively in the field of interventional pulmonology. Prof Corbetta is also part of the Executive Committee of the European Association for Bronchoscopy and Interventional Pulmonology.

Dr Georgia Hardavella (MD, MSc, PhD) is a Consultant Respiratory Physician at Athens’ Chest Diseases Hospital ‘Sotiria’ which is the National Tertiary Referral Centre for Respiratory Diseases and COVID19 in Greece with more than 300 dedicated respiratory beds.

Previously she worked as a Consultant Respiratory Physician and Clinical Lead for Lung Cancer, Bronchoscopy and Pulmonary Nodules services at King’s College Hospital in London having received dedicated training for these at University College London (UCL).

She has also served as the Co-Chair of the Lung Cancer Tumour Group, in South East London Accountable Clinical Network where she led the Lung Cancer Pathway in 6 South East London Hospitals with a catchment area of 5,000,000 people (Guys and St.Thomas’ Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Princess Royal University Hospital (part of King’s College Hospital), Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust). She has set up and leads a dedicated Pulmonary Nodules Service at ‘Sotiria’ Athens’ Chest Diseases Hospital and she is a core member of the Multidisciplinary Lung Cancer Team in her hospital. She has developed several clinical research projects at UCL and King’s College London and currently serves as the Research Lead in her Department thereby setting up an extended clinical research portfolio in Athens’ Chest Diseases Hospital.

Her main research interests include prognostic markers in lung cancer and pulmonary nodules, interventional bronchoscopies and quality indexes in thoracic oncology. Dr Hardavella has received numerous national and international awards (14). She is the Chair of the Lung Cancer Group in both the European Respiratory Society (ERS) and the Hellenic Thoracic Society (HTS), she is an EBAP Management Board Member (European Board of Accreditation in Pneumology) and a member of the Fellowships and Awards Working Group in the European Respiratory Society (ERS). She has participated in ERS Taskforces in Thoracic Oncology aiming to improve the quality of care in Thoracic Oncology throughout Europe and she chairs the ERS Taskforce on Fitness for Lung Cancer Treatment. She has served as the Chair of the Professional Advisory Committee in the European Lung Foundation (ELF) and has led numerous ELF projects promoting patient and public involvement (PPI) in research and clinical services. She is an Associate Editor of the European Respiratory Review and Breathe (ERS Journals). She chairs the Hellenic Taskforce on Lung Cancer Screening in Greece and she is working closely with the Hellenic Thoracic Society, the state and all stakeholders to roll out a National Lung Cancer Screening Programme in Greece.

Dr. Tudor Toma graduated from the Faculty of Medicine in Iasi, Romania, in 1993. After graduation he trained in respiratory medicine and worked as an assistant professor in the Chest Department at University of Iasi. In 2000 he went to London and worked at the Royal Brompton Hospital, Imperial College, University of London, where he completed his doctoral thesis (PhD) in interventional bronchoscopy. In his thesis he described for the first time in the world a minimally invasive endoscopic treatment for patients with emphysema: endoscopic lung volume reduction. Since 2007, dr. Toma works in London as a Consultant Respiratory Physician, having a special interest in respiratory problems, in particular in relation to airway diseases and diagnostics using bronchoscopy and point of care ultrasonography.