Award winners

Stefano Nava is Professor of Respiratory and Critical Care at the University of Bologna and Chief of Respiratory and Critical Care at Sant’ Orsola Malpighi Hospital. His interests are in mechanical ventilation, weaning, respiratory muscle and ethics, and he has developed the use of non-invasive mechanical ventilation as a weaning technique. He has previously served as Chair of the European Respiratory Society’s Intensive Care Assembly and as Director of the ERS Postgraduate Courses. He is current Associate Editor of the European Respiratory Review, former Associate Editor of Breathe, and a reviewer of more than 10 international journals, including the Lancet, JAMA, and the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. With an H index of 57, he has had 240 papers published in peer-reviewed journals.

Antonio R. Anzueto is Professor of Pulmonary and Critical Care in the department of Medicine at the University of Texas, and Chief in the Pulmonary Section of the Audie L. Murphy Memorial Veterans’ Hospital Division of the South Texas Veterans Health Care System, United States. He is a Fellow of ERS and the American Thoracic Society, and currently serves on the editorial board of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, American College of CHEST Physicians Journal, the COPD Journal, and the Respiratory Research Journal. He has published more than 300 manuscripts in highly rated medical journals and has received multiple awards, including Teacher of the Year and Outstanding Pulmonary Doctor.

Lena Uller is Professor in Immunology, Head of the Respiratory Immunopharmacology research unit, and Vice Deputy Head of the Department of Experimental Medical Science at Lund University, Sweden. Extensive parts of her research build upon her discoveries of viral-induced cytokines and drug opportunities distinctly expressed in bronchial epithelium of asthma patients. She now directs a translational research programme exploring innate immune mechanisms of cultured airway structural cells in asthma, with a focus on clinical treatment effects and phenotype-dependent bronchial epithelial immunoreactivity to exacerbation triggers. This research will elucidate new molecular mechanisms to better understand the development and resolution of asthma and disease-related exacerbations.

Wim Janssens is professor and head of the laboratory of Respiratory Diseases and Thoracic Surgery at KU Leuven, Belgium, and leads the clinical COPD program at the University Hospitals of Leuven. Supported by the Flemish Research Foundation, his research interests are on acute exacerbations, co-morbidities, and rehabilitation in COPD; and on artificial intelligence for the diagnosis and treatment of respiratory diseases. He is co-author of more than 180 publications, co-supervisor of 25 PhD students and co-founder of ArtiQ; a software that automates the interpretation of pulmonary function tests. He is past president of the Belgian Respiratory Society and co-chair of the ERS Clinical Research collaboration for acute COPD exacerbations.

Marlies Wijsenbeek is chair of the multidisciplinary Centre of Interstitial Lung Diseases and Sarcoidosis; a national expert centre and member of the European Reference Network based at the Erasmus University Medical Centre, Netherlands. Her research interests include patient-centred outcome measures in ILDS, e-health, and trial design and new therapies in pulmonary fibrosis and sarcoidosis. She is current secretary and upcoming chair of the ERS Group 12.01 (Interstitial Lung Diseases), is a member of the scientific advisory boards of a number of different patient associations including EU-IPFF, and is associate editor of the European Respiratory Journal and Respiratory Research.

Carolyn S. Calfee is Professor of Medicine and Anesthesia at the University of California, San Francisco, where she attends in the intensive care units. Her primary academic focus is the pathogenesis and treatment of the acute respiratory distress syndrome. Current research projects include molecular subphenotypes of ARDS and precision medicine in critical care; the role of environmental exposures including smoking, air pollution, and novel tobacco products in susceptibility to lung injury; and novel treatments for ARDS. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she has been the UCFS clinical lead and steering committee member for the Immunophenotyping Assessment in a COVID-19 Cohort study, and one of the lead Principal Investigators for the I-SPY COVID clinical trial; a Phase 2 adaptive platform clinical trial of novel treatments for COVID-19 associated ARDS.

Liesbeth Duijts is a Paediatrician-Pulmonologist and Epidemiologist at Erasmus University Medical Center, Netherlands, with patient care responsibilities comprising tertiary care of paediatric respiratory diseases across the full spectrum. Her research is focused on early origins and life course consequences of respiratory diseases and uses large-scale population-based cohorts and international networks of more than 100,000 children. She has been awarded an ERS Marie Curie Research Fellow grant, founded and chairs the BPD Expertise Center, and led the ERS Task Force ‘Long-term management of BPD'. She chairs the ERS Paediatric Respiratory Epidemiology Group, is board member of the Dutch Pediatric Respiratory Society, and Science Committee member of GINA.

Najib M Rahman is Professor of Respiratory Medicine at the University of Oxford, runs the Oxford Pleural Unit and directs the Oxford Respiratory Trials Unit. He is trained in Thoracoscopy, Thoracic Ultrasound and Clinical Trials methodology, and is currently running randomised and observational studies in pleural infection, pneumothorax, and malignant pleural effusion. He is Director of the Oxford Respiratory Trials Unit and Consultant Lead for Pleural Disease in Oxford and has published over 250 papers with citations of more than 6,000. He is co-chair of the British Thoracic Society’s Pleural Guidelines 2021, chair of the BTS Pleural Intervention Committee, and chair of multiple ERS guidelines on pleural disease.

Matthew Maddocks is a physiotherapist and Reader in Health Services Research at the Cicely Saunders Institute of Palliative Care, Policy and Rehabilitation, King’s College London. His doctorate examined the role of exercise in cancer cachexia and subsequent awards include a UK National Institute of Health Research post-doctoral and clinical trials and career development fellowships. His research sits at the interface between respiratory, rehabilitation and palliative care; and his work includes studies on age-related syndromes, functional decline, symptom management and novel exercise interventions.

James Chalmers is British Lung Foundation Chair of Respiratory Research at the University of Dundee, UK, and a consultant respiratory physician. His clinical and research interests are in difficult respiratory infections. He is chair of the European Bronchiectasis Network and Registry (EMBARC) and chaired the 2017 ERS Bronchiectasis Guidelines. His research group has made a major contribution to clinical and translational research into bronchiectasis resulting in more than 250 peer reviewed papers including landmark studies into disease phenotyping and treatment. He is chief investigator for a number of multicentre bronchiectasis trials and is also Deputy Chief Editor of the European Respiratory Journal.

Paolo Palange is Professor of Respiratory Medicine at Sapienza University of Rome, Head of the Pulmonary Division at the Policlinico Umberto I Hospital, Rome, and President of the European Board for Accreditation in Pulmonology. An active member of ERS, he has formerly served as chair of the ERS School where he oversaw the publication of the first edition of the ERS Handbook of Respiratory Medicine and its subsequent two editions, as well as the launch of the MCQ HERMES Examination Handbook and the ERS Respiratory Sleep Handbook. He currently sits on the Editorial Board of the European Respiratory Journal, Breathe and American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. With an H Index 34, he is the author of 250 research articles published in peer review journals.

Mark Elliott is a Consultant Physician in Respiratory Medicine at St James's University Hospital, Leeds, UK. With research interests in acute and chronic NIV and OSA, he has been responsible for developing the home sleep and assisted ventilation service for acute in-hospital NIV and weaning patients with prolonged ventilator dependence. He has formerly served as Treasurer of the European Respiratory Society and President of the British Thoracic Society and was a core member of the Guidelines Writing Group for both the BTS and ERS Acute NIV Guidelines, and the ERS guidelines on long-term home NIV for management of COPD.

Elisabeth Bel is professor of Respiratory Medicine at the Amsterdam University Medical Centers in the Netherlands, where she headed the Pulmonary Department for more than 10 years. With a special focus on disease mechanisms and novel therapies, she is a world-renowned expert on severe and complex asthma and has published in high-ranking journals and received many awards. She has been a member of the European Respiratory Society since its inception, serving on its Executive Committee and becoming the first female ERS President. She is currently co-chair of the ERS Severe Asthma Clinical Research Collaboration SHARP.

Josep M. Antó is Professor of Medicine at the Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona. His research career has focused on the epidemiology of asthma and COPD with a special interest in environmental determinants and prevention. He has formerly served as a director at the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute, the Spanish Network Centre on Epidemiology and Public Health, the Centre for Research and Epidemiology, and the Barcelona Institute for Global Health. Since 2019, he has been fully devoted to adapting environmental health strategies to fight against the climate crisis and promoting the concept of planetary health locally and internationally. He has received several local and international distinctions and is the co-author of more than 450 papers.

Giovanni Battista Migliori is a specialist in Respiratory Medicine and Medical Statistics and has more than 30 years of global experience in technical assistance, research, and training. He is Director of the World Health Organization’s Collaborating Centre for TB and Lung Diseases at Maugeri Research Institute, Italy; Honorary Professor at the Queen Mary University, London; and Visiting Professor at the University of Monterrey, Mexico, and Insubria, Italy. Former Secretary General of the ERS and President of the UNION (European Region), he is currently Chief Editor of the International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease, Section Editor for TB for the European Respiratory Journal, and Chair of the Global Tuberculosis Network. With an H-Index of more than 70, he has published over 600 peer-review papers.

Daiana Stolz is Professor of Respiratory Medicine at the University of Basel, Switzerland, and a leading physician at the University Hospital, where she leads a translational research group on inflammatory airway diseases. She is a Fellow of the European Respiratory Society and the American College of Chest Physicians, and a member of the editorial boards of the European Respiratory Journal and Chest. She has formerly served as Chair of the European Board of Accreditation in Pneumology and Chair of the ERS Education Council. She has authored more than 250 publications in peer-reviewed journals, including several studies on pulmonary and systemic biomarkers for the characterisation of patients with COPD.

Fabio Midulla, is full Professor of Paediatrics and Director of the Pediatrics Residence Programme of the Sapienza University of Rome, and president of the Italian Society of Paediatric Respiratory Diseases (SIMRI). He has been an active member of the European Respiratory Society since 1990 and an Officer of the Paediatric Assembly of ERS from 2005 to 2017. During these years, he has actively participated in the Paediatric HERMES Examination Committee, in the Evaluation Committee and in the ERS Education Council. He has been one of the organisers of the Paediatric Hands-on Bronchoscopy course that has been held two times a year since 2000, and has trained more than 300 young paediatric pulmonologists all around the world. He is also, since the year 2015, the organiser of the Paediatric Respiratory HERMES summer school. In the year 2019 he received the ERS Lifetime Achievement Award. During the last 30 years, he has actively served the ERS in the review process of task forces, scholarships and awards. He has participated as invited speaker at more than 250 meetings.

Michael Kreuter is Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Heidelberg, Germany, where he is head of the Centre for Interstitial and Rare Lung Diseases; a European Reference network (ERN) certified ILD centre. Furthermore, he is a principal investigator of the German Centre for Lung Research. Michael Kreuter is board certified in internal medicine, pulmonology and haematology-oncology. Following a clinical fellowship in Muenster, Germany and a research fellowship at Harvard Medical School Boston, USA, he has worked at the Thoraxklinik; a specialised chest clinic of the University Hospital Heidelberg, Germany since 2005. His clinical and scientific interest focuses on interstitial and rare lung diseases. He is conducting various research projects on comorbidities, epidemiology, biomarkers as well as diagnosis and therapy of interstitial lung diseases. He is also very committed to educational programmes. As such, he is the founder and scientific head of the annual German Symposium on 'Rare lung diseases' for which he received a teaching award from the German patient support group Lungenfibrose e.V. He is also involved in within ERS currently as Group 12.1 Chair and looks forward to supporting educational activities as the Secretary Elect of Assembly 12. One of his major achievements was founding the ERS ILD school in 2013, together with other ILD experts, which he will host again virtually in 2021.

Dr Niki Ubags is senior scientist and group leader at the University Hospital (CHUV) in Lausanne, Switzerland and completed her PhD with respect to obesity and pulmonary host defense at Maastricht University Medical Center, Netherlands. To extend her knowledge on the impact of obesity on airway diseases, Dr Ubags pursued multidisciplinary training at the Vermont Lung Center, University of Vermont, USA. Since 2016, she has been investigating host-microbe interactions in the onset and progression of airway diseases at the university hospital in Lausanne, Switzerland. Her current research and teaching principles revolve around bi-directional translation to improve the value of basic science findings for respiratory medicine. Dr Ubags is dedicated to the involvement and contribution of early career respiratory professionals in ERS and their continued career development. Her contribution to educational activities within ERS include both the development and organisation of educational sessions, as well as the publishing of educational content in Breathe dedicated to early career members. Moreover, she has organised an ERS research seminar and served as faculty at annual ERS Congresses and the Lung Science Conferences. Dr Ubags is the current chair of the ERS Early Career Member Committee and an active member of various other ERS committees, including the fellowships and awards working group and science council.

Gabor Kovacs is Associate Professor of Respiratory Medicine at the Medical University of Graz, Austria, where he coordinates the Pulmonary Hypertension programme. In addition to his clinical duties, he is the leader of the Clinical Program Line of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Lung Vascular Research. With clinical and research interests in the investigation of pulmonary haemodynamics in patients with airway diseases, the early diagnosis of pulmonary hypertension, and the assessment of pulmonary haemodynamics during exercise, he currently coordinates the ERS Clinical Research Collaboration on Pulmonary Haemodynamics During Exercise. Professor Kovacs is a member of the ERS Guideline Group, member of the HERMES examination committee and organiser of the ERS Summer School, as well as President Elect of the Austrian Society of Pulmonology.

Alberto García-Basteiro is a preventive medicine specialist at Hospital Clínic in Barcelona and Associate Research Professor at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), where he leads the Tuberculosis (TB) research group. He also coordinates the TB research area at the Manhiça Health Research Center (CISM) in Mozambique. Dr García-Basteiro’s interests include the study of the burden of TB disease in different vulnerable populations and the assessment of characterisation of the disease at multiple levels including clinical, microbiological and social. In these last years, he has contributed to the evaluation of new tools to improve TB diagnosis and treatment. Since the beginning of his academic career, he has published more than 130 peer-reviewed articles in biomedical journals and has been guest speaker at several international conferences. He serves as member of different international advisory committees and works closely with the Mozambican National Tuberculosis Programme, contributing to design operational research studies and provide support to national working groups.