COVID-19: State of the art – DRAGON IMI project

Professor Christopher Brightling is Senior Investigator at the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), Clinical Professor in Respiratory Medicine, Chair of the ERS Science Council and founding Director of the ERS Clinical Research Collaborations. His research focuses on improving the clinical management, and understanding the immunopathogenesis of asthma, chronic cough and COPD.

He has published over 370 peer-reviewed articles, has an h-index of 95, and is a member of the American College of Chest Physicians’ Cough Guidelines, the British Thoracic Society, the American Thoracic Society/European Respiratory Society Severe Asthma guidelines and the scientific committee for the Global INitiative for Asthma - GINA.

Dr Eva Polverino is a pulmonology expert in respiratory infections. She is Senior Researcher at the Vall D’Hebron Institute of Research (VHIR) in Barcelona, Spain and Head of ERS Assembly 10; ‘Respiratory Infections’.

Dr Polverino graduated from the medical School of the Second University of Naples (SUN) in 1999 and obtained her doctorate from the University of Pisa in 2002. She also holds a master’s degree in the management of Clinical Units from the University of Murcia.

Stefano Aliberti is Professor of Respiratory Medicine at the University of Milan, Italy, a member of the ERS Clinical Research Collaboration working group, and a former ERS Curriculum Development Director, who has also collaborated in the writing of the ERS Guidelines for the management of adult bronchiectasis.

He graduated with honours from the University of Milan’s School of Medicine in 2003, before completing a Fellowship in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at the university’s Institute of Respiratory Diseases. After that, he completed a Clinical Research Fellowship in Pulmonary Medicine at his alma mater, and from 2006 to 2007, he was a clinical research fellow at the Division of Infectious Diseases of the Internal Medicine Department of the University of Louisville in the United States.

Professor Aliberti is the co-author of more than 50 scientific articles and book chapters, and has delivered dozens of lectures at national and international events as well as courses at university and master’s degree level. Because of his scientific work, Professor Aliberti was laureated with the 2007 ERS Young Researcher Award.

James Chalmers is Professor of Respiratory Medicine at the University of Dundee and a consultant physician. Graduating from the University of Glasgow’s School of Medicine, he has since gone on to obtain a doctorate from the University of Edinburgh,
and is now a member of Edinburgh’s Royal College of Physicians.

He has published more than 200 peer reviewed papers, chairs the European Bronchiectasis Registry, and serves regularly as a reviewer for each of the major respiratory medicine journals (American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, Thorax, European Respiratory Journal, Chest, Respiratory Medicine).

His research operates at both translating basic discoveries into therapies, and translating therapies into clinical practice, and has deliberately focussed on areas of perceived need in respiratory medicine, with high morbidity and mortality but limited investment in research.

Nina C. Flerin is a biomedical scientist with knowledge across a range of therapeutic areas, including HIV, oncology and immunity, immunotherapies and immunometabolism.

Her extensive experience in scientific writing has resulted in three primary research publications, two reviews and numerous research abstracts, conference presentations, grant applications and regulatory documents.

She is passionate about science and the sharing of scientific discoveries, with the ultimate goal of benefitting patients in the clinic.

Marko Topalović PhD is a CEO of ArtiQ (Leuven, Belgium); a company that aims to empower medical professionals with artificial intelligence to accurately and timely diagnose, treat and monitor patients with lung diseases.

Formerly, as a postdoctoral researcher in the University Hospital in Leuven (Belgium), Marko worked on inventing algorithms for assessing lung disease. He obtained a PhD degree on the topic “Artificial intelligence for pulmonary function tests” at the KU Leuven.

His scientific work has contributed to many peer-reviewed publications and numerous conference presentations. Moreover, he received several international awards.

Dr Scott Wagers trained as a respiratory and critical care physician and researcher, and brings more than 20 years’ experience in the life sciences, with more than 10,000 hours of experience as a moderator of dialogue in cognitively diverse teams.

As the founder and CEO of BioSci Consulting, he has had a pivotal role in several European based collaborative research projects (U-BIOPRED, AirPROM, COPD MAP, eTRIKS, ERS Research Agency, AIMS-2-Trials).

His main focus is on bringing innovative companies together with stakeholders and diverse disciplines to develop and deliver collaborative projects that will help change the future of medicine.

Janne Vignero is a medical physicist and obtained a PhD in X-ray physics in 2018. Currently, she works as a post-doctoral researcher at the Radiology department of the university hospital of Leuven, Belgium, where she tries to make the bridge between technical research and clinic. With a background in physics and experience in medical imaging, she collaborates with radiologists to bring deep learning and data science into clinical practice.

Ruud van der Made is a member of the COVID-19 Patient Advisory Group and a COVID-19 patient. He cares for his wife (also having survived COVID-19) who has Lymphangioleiomyomatosis.