New approaches to mild asthma (GINA Update 2021)

Guy Brusselle is Professor and Head of the Department of Respiratory Medicine at Ghent University Hospital, Ghent, Belgium. His research areas of interest are asthma and severe asthma, encompassing clinical research, translational research and epidemiologic research. He served as ERS Guidelines Director from 2012-2016 and ERS Science Council Chair from 2016-2019.

Arzu Yorgancıoğlu is ERS Advocacy Council Chair and Professor of the Department of Pulmonology at Celal Bayar University, Turkey. She has long-term scientific interest in the diagnosis and treatment of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Her international activities include being the ERS Turkey Delegate, member of the ERS Membership Committee, Member of the ATS International Lung Health Committee, MECOR Turkey Coordinator, and member of the Allergic Rhinitis and its Impact on Asthma (ARIA) Executive Committee. She is a member of the Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) Board and chair of the GINA Dissemination and Implementation committee.

Celeste Porsbjerg is Professor of Severe Asthma at the Department of Respiratory Medicine, Bispebjerg Hospital, Copenhagen, where she heads the severe asthma clinic and chairs the Respiratory Research Unit. Her research revolves around solving key clinical issues in difficult asthma, understanding disease mechanisms, and personalising asthma management. She chairs the Danish Severe Asthma Registry (DSAR), and the NORDSTAR Asthma Research Consortium, and is the national representative for Denmark in the SHARP ERS Clinical Research Collaboration and ISAR.

Mikaela Odemyr is Chair of the European Lung Foundations (ELF) Patient Advisory Committee and Past President of the European Federation of Allergy and Airways Diseases Patients’ Associations (EFA). Mikaela, who has asthma along with her three children, has spent many years working for the local non-profit organisation Asthma and Allergy Association in Örnsköldsvik, Sweden. For the last 20 years, she has been giving lectures in schools, hospitals and restaurants to different authorities and parents on living with allergy and asthma. Mikaela has authored a baking book–how to bake without eggs, milk and nuts–that was published in bookshops in Sweden in October 2020.

Helen Reddel is a Research Leader at the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research and Professor at the University of Sydney, Australia, She is Director of the Australian Centre for Airways disease Monitoring, and Chair of the GINA Science Committee.