Speakers

Shawn Aaron is an Associate Professor at The University of Ottawa. He is a respirologist with special research and clinical interests in COPD and cystic fibrosis. His research has been focused on the critical assessment of interventions designed to prevent exacerbations and improve the diagnosis and treatment of exacerbations of COPD and CF.

Michael Abramson is Professor of Clinical Epidemiology at Monash University and a Visiting Medical Officer in Allergy, Immunology and Respiratory Medicine at The Alfred in Melbourne. He graduated in Medicine from Monash University in 1979 and received his PhD from the University of Newcastle in 1990. His research covers the epidemiology of chronic lung diseases, including environmental risk factors such as air pollution and has received continuous NHMRC support since 1991.

W. Michael Alberts, MD, FCCP, Department of Interdisciplinary Oncology, University of South Florida College of Medicine and the Thoracic Oncology Program, Moffitt Cancer Center, Tampa, Florida, USA

Gary Anderson, PhD, is a specialist in respiratory pharmacology and immunology and leads the Lung Disease Research Group at the University of Melbourne, one of the leading laboratories of its type. Prior to this he led a team of basic and applied researchers in the Swiss Pharmaceuticals industry for 9 years (Ciba-Geigy now Novartis) where his research contributed to the discovery and development of a number of internationally marketed pharmaceuticals, including the long acting beta-agonist formoterol. He co-founded the Cooperative Research Centre for Chronic Inflammatory Diseases (CRC-CID) where he serves as Associate Director and Research Director. His long term research focus remains the discovery and development of new treatments for asthma and COPD.

Sandra Anderson is a respiratory physiologist and works in the Department of Respiratory and Sleep Medicine at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. Her major contribution has been in the field of asthma particularly the application of measurement to its diagnosis and treatment. Sandra is a world authority in the measurement, management and mechanisms of exercise-induced asthma. Her studies of heat and water loss in exercise induced asthma led to the development of a simple and rapid test for identifying asthmatics involving the inhalation of a dry powder of mannitol. She has 160 papers in peer-reviewed journals. She has served on the independent panel on beta agonists of International Olympic Committee medical Commission since 2001. Her research funding comes from the National Health Medical Research Council of Australia.

Lutz Beckert MD, FRCP, MRCP (UK) works as a Respiratory Physician at Christchurch Hospital, New Zealand. His research interests include the management of patients with thromboembolic disease, patients with pulmonary artery hypertension. Lutz Beckert is also the medical director of the Respiratory Physiology Laboratory and published in aspects of respiratory physiology.

Norbert Berend is Professor of Respiratory Medicine at the University of Sydney and Director of the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research. He is the author of 115 publications largely on the subject of the pathophysiology of asthma and COPD. He has had a long involvement with and is the current President of the APSR.

Jack Buckley has been a Senior Staff Physician in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, Michigan (USA) for the past ten years. He is Director of Henry Ford's Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Fellowship Training Program and also directs a separate Critical Care Medicine fellowship integrated with other disciplines such as Nephrology, Infectious Diseases, and Emergency Medicine. He is active member of the American College of Chest Physicians and Vice-President of the Association of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Program Directors.

Sonia Buist is currently Professor of Medicine and until recently was Head of the Division of Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine at the Oregon Health & Sciences University. She also holds the rank of Professor in the Department of Physiology & Pharmacology, and in the Department of Public Health & Preventive Medicine. Her research interests are primarily in the areas of asthma and COPD, with particular emphasis on the epidemiology and management of these diseases, and the overlap between them. She has been the principal investigator for the Portland Center of the US Lung Health Studies I, II, and III. She has been engaged since 1993 in health services and outcomes research as an Affiliate Investigator at the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research in Portland.

Sang-Heon Cho is Director of the Department of Asthma, Allergy and Clinical Immunology, and vice president of Healthcare System Gangnam Center, Seoul National University Hospital. He is director of Educational Committee of the Korean Society of Asthma, Allergy and Clinical Immunology and treasurer of the Korean Society of Immunology. He also participated in establishing Korea Asthma-Allergy Foundation and has been served as a member of Steering Committee and Easy Asthma Management Working Group. Dr Cho is a consultant for the Korean Government in the field of asthma and atopic diseases.

Fan Chung is Professor of Respiratory Medicine at National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London, and honorary consultant physician at the Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Trust, London. He leads the Experimental Medicine Section at NHLI and is an investigator of the MRC-Asthma UK Centre for Mechanisms of Allergic Asthma. His research interests include the mechanisms of airway inflammation and repair, and airway smooth muscle biology, with particular interest in asthma, COPD and the pathophysiology of cough. Dr Chung is currently serving on the editorial boards of BioMed Central Pulmonary Medicine, Respiration, Respirology and European Journal of Clinical Pharmacology. He is co-editor of the journal, Cough.

Peter Cistulli is Professor of Respiratory Medicine at the University of Sydney and Royal North Shore Hospital, Sydney, Australia, where he heads the Centre for Sleep Health & Research. He is also an executive member of the Sleep & Circadian Group at the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research. He has clinical and research interests across all aspects of sleep-disordered breathing, with a particular focus on the role of oral appliances in the management of OSA. Most of the projects have been funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia, and have resulted in a series of high impact publications in the field.

Gene L Colice, MD, is Professor of Medicine at The George Washington University School of Medicine in Washington, DC. He is also Director of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Respiratory Services at Washington Hospital Center in Washington, DC. An interesting interlude to his academic career was his appointments as Associate Director of Clinical Research at Burroughs Wellcome, where he worked on the development of epiprostenol for pulmonary hypertension and later Director of Clinical Research at 3M Pharmaceuticals with global responsibility for the development of inhaled products for the treatment of asthma. In this latter position he oversaw the clinical development and worldwide regulatory approval of two new drugs for the treatment of asthma, HFA-albuterol and HFA-beclomethasone.

Evangelia Daviskas is a senior research scientist at the Department of Respiratory and Sleep Medicine of Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney. She has studied extensively the mucociliary clearance in healthy and diseased airways. Her research work has focused on the osmotic stimuli and in particular dry powder mannitol as a treatment of mucociliary dysfunction in patients with excessive secretions such as patients with bronchiectasis.

Peter Eastwood holds appointments as a NHMRC (Australia) R Douglas Wright Fellow at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital, an Associate Professor at the University of Western Australia and an Adjunct Professor at Curtin University of Technology. Dr Eastwood's research group investigates the pathophysiology of upper airway dysfunction in individuals with sleep-disordered breathing. His research has lead to the development of novel techniques and unique capabilities including optical imaging of the human upper airway and the application of general anaesthesia to examine upper airway function. Dr Eastwood is currently the primary supervisor of two postdoctoral fellows and four PhD students, a Director of the Australian Society for Medical Research, Treasurer of the Australasian Sleep Association, an Associate Editor of Respirology and a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Applied Physiology.

Philip Eng is Head of the Department of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine at the Singapore General Hospital. He was past president of the Singapore Thoracic Society and is currently International Regent of the American College of Chest Physicians. He is a founding member of the Asia Pacific Association of Bronchology and was Congress President of the 2nd Asia Pacific Congress of Bronchology, Singapore July 2007.

Paul Enright is a pulmonary physician who, during the 1990s was an investigator from the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota for the Lung Health Study of 5000 smokers with mild airway obstruction. He then worked with Doctors Ben Burrows and Mike Lebowitz at the University of Arizona testing lung function for a large longitudinal study, and was a member of the ATS pulmonary function standards committee. He now works for the Center of Disease Control to help detect lung disease in World Trade Center responders and wildland fire-fighters.

David Fielding is a Thoracic Physician at Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital. His main interest is bronchology with emphasis on Endobronchial Ultrasound and fluorescence bronchoscopy.

Eli Gabbay is an Associate Professor with both the University of Western Australia Medical School and Curtin University and is the Medical Director of the Lung Institute of Western Australia group in Pulmonary Vascular Disease, Advanced Lung Disease and Lung Transplantation. He has research interests in the epidemiology, pathogenesis, genetics and therapy of PAH as well as the role of exercise in the assessment and management of PAH His group is also involved in novel research examining treatment strategies and pathogenesis of obliterative bronchiolitis following lung transplantation. He is the current chair of the Pulmonary Circulation Council for the Asia-Pacific Society of Respirology and heads the Australian Lung Foundation Pulmonary Hypertension Taskforce.

Luke is a respiratory physician, who trained predominantly in Brisbane, Australia and also in Belfast, UK. He has a clinical and research focus on pleural disease, including medical thoracoscopy, and the mechanism of dyspnea and impaired exercise capacity in patients with pleural effusion. For the last 4 years he has been the physician at Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane, with a principle role co-ordinating the care of patients with difficult pleural effusion, and has performed 80 thoracoscopies over this period.

Hossein A Ghofrani is Associate Professor for Internal Medicine at University Hospital, Giessen and currently is Head of the Pulmonary Hypertension Division, Department of Internal Medicine, at Giessen. He leads a translational research group on development of new therapeutics for Cardiopulmonary Vascular disease. He is also member of the steering committee of the Excellence Cluster Cardio-Pulmonary System (http://eccps.de). He has participated in the development of several therapeutics for chronic lung diseases and pulmonary hypertension, including prostanoids, phosphodiesterase inhibitors, endothelin receptor antagonists and tyrosine kinase inhibitors.

Peter Gibson is a respiratory physician and clinical researcher based at the Centre for Asthma and respiratory disease at the University of Newcastle. His work addresses the mechanisms and treatment of airway diseases, and currently targets noneosinophilic mechanisms in asthma and COPD.

Ronald F Grossman is Professor of Medicine, University of Toronto and Chief of Medicine, Credit Valley Hospital, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. His major research and teaching interests are in respiratory tract infections. He has participated in the creation of Canadian and American guidelines for the management of community-acquired pneumonia, Canadian guidelines for the management of hospital-acquired pneumonia and Canadian and international guidelines for the management of acute exacerbations of chronic obstructive lung disease. He has served as the chairman of the National Information Program on Antibiotics (NIPA), a coalition of many medical and public health societies. This coalition has been established to encourage the appropriate use of antibiotics among physicians and patients.

Kirti Gunasekera is Consultant Respiratory Physician, Central Chest Clinic, Colombo and National Hospital of Sri Lanka, Colombo and Visiting Consultant Respiratory Physician, Chest Clinic, Badulla and General Hospital, Badulla, Sri Lanka. Dr Gunasekera pioneered the establishment of over 30 Respiratory Clinics in rural Sri Lanka with programs for continued Medical Education for the doctors and Health Care workers in these areas and is the National Coordinator for the ISSAC phase three in Sri Lanka and a steering Committee member of the ARIAP 2. Dr Gunasekera is President of the National Asthma Council of Sri Lanka.

Eunhee Ha is Professor in the Department of Preventive Medicine, Medical College, Hospital, Ewha Women's University. Current research interest is the effect of air pollution on pregnant women's and children's health. Professor Ha's PhD research focussed on the Inhibitory effects of magnesium carbonate on cytotoxicity, genotoxicity, and cell transformation by nickel subsulfide.

Graham Hall is the Senior Research Scientist at Princess Margaret Hospital for Children Perth, Western Australia and leads a research group investigating paediatric clinical respiratory physiology. Recent research has focussed on the introduction of tests of respiratory function for clinical use in pre-school aged children and the development of fitness to fly testing in infants. Outside of work Professor Hall teaches his own young children the joys of swimming.

Satoru Hashimoto is Director of Intensive Care Medicine and Clinical Professor in ICU at Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine, Japan. From 1992-1994 he was a visiting associate research anaesthesiologist at the University of California, San Francisco. His main areas of research are Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome in ICU, Fas/FasL system, HMGB1, and ERM protein family.

Rashidul Hassan is Professor in the Department of Pulmonary Medicine at the National Asthma Center, National Institute of Diseases of the Chest and Hospital, Dhaka. A medical pioneer over the last 15 years in Bangladesh, he has been involved in developing modern asthma management in Bangladesh, founding the Asthma Association in Bangladesh and organizing asthma research in Bangladesh. He introduced fibre-optic bronchoscopy in Bangladesh.

Noboru Hattori graduated from Kyoto University in 1987, and completed his PhD at graduate school of medicine, Kyoto University, in 1996. From 1996 to 2000, he was a research fellow at Pulmonary Division of Internal Medicine, University of Michigan, where he started a research on pulmonary fibrosis. In 2004, he joined the Department of Molecular and Internal Medicine at Hiroshima University as a faculty and now is serving as an associate professor.

Christine Jenkins AM, MD, FRACP is Clinical Professor of Medicine, Sydney University and a thoracic physician at Concord Hospital, Sydney. She has a strong clinical and research interest in the management of asthma and COPD and is head of the Airways Group at the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. She is a member of the GOLD Executive and Chairs the Dissemination and Implementation Task Group. Christine is an active clinician, and has two written books for students and patients on asthma.

Greg King is Research Leader of the Imaging Group at the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research and senior staff specialist in the Department of Respiratory Medicine, Royal North Shore Hospital where he is Head of the Respiratory Investigation Unit. He is a senior researcher of the Cooperative Research Centre for Asthma and Airways and Conjoint Associate Professor of the Northern Clinical School, University of Sydney. His research interests include the clinical physiology of airways disease.

Talmadge E King, Jr, MD is the Constance B Wofsy Distinguished Professor and Interim chair of the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), and chief of medical services at San Francisco General Hospital (SFGH). He held a professorship in medicine at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, and was a senior faculty member at the National Jewish Medical and Research Center. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, Association of American Physicians, American Clinical and Climatological Association, Fleischner Society, and is a fellow of the American College of Physicians and the American College of Chest Physicians.

Dr Knight obtained his PhD at the University of Western Australia in 1993 and undertook a post-doctoral Fellowship at the University of British Columbia. He returned to Perth in 1997 as a senior Research Officer. In 2004, Dr Knight was recruited back to Vancouver as the Canada Research Chair in Airway Disease and more recently, Michael Smith Foundation Senior Scholar Career Investigator at the James Hogg iCAPTURE Centre for Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Research and Associate Professor, Department of Anaesthesiology, Pharmacology and Therapeutics, University of British Columbia.

Toru Kotani is Associate Professor, Department of Anaesthesiology and Critical Care, Tokyo Women's Medical University and Director of the Intensive Care Unit. He was a visiting scientist in the Division of Respiratory Care Services, Duke University Medical Center, USA, working with Dr Neil R MacIntyre from 2001 to 2003. He has studying VALI issue for 10 years.

Hiroshi Kubo is Assistant Professor in the Department of Geriatric and Respiratory Medicine, Tohoku University School of Medicine, Sendai. His main areas of research are acute lung injury, regenerative medicine and cell therapy. He has been on the editorial board of the American Journal of Physiology: Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology since 2006.

Sow-Hsong Kuo is a pulmonologist and cytopathologist. He is Professor Emeritus, Department of Medicine, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan and consultant physician, Far Eastern Memorial Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan. Dr Kuo is chairman of the Taiwan Asthma Council and an Assembly member of GINA

Kwek Boon Han completed a Cardiac and Chest fellowship in Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard in 2003, under a government scholarship (HMDP). He is currently a consultant radiologist with Asia Health Partners, the Reference Center for Advanced Imaging, GE Healthcare SEA, which is the first site in Asia to provide clinical services with the HDx MRI as well as the VCT XT 64-slice CT scanner. Dr Kwek Boon Han currently chairs the Cardiac CT Guidelines Committee and the Professional Standards Committee of the College of Radiologists, Singapore.

Christopher Lai is a respiratory physician in private practice and an Honorary Clinical Professor at the Department of Medicine and Therapeutics, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Dr. Lai was the President of the Hong Kong Thoracic Society from 1994 to 96 & is the current President of the Hong Kong Institute of Allergy. He is the ISAAC regional coordinator for the Western Pacific and the chairman of the steering committee of the AIRIAP (Asthma Insights & Reality in Asia Pacific) study.

Donald E Low, MD, FRCPC a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and a member of the Association of American Physicians. Dr Low's primary research interests are in the study of the epidemiology and the mechanisms of antimicrobial resistance in community and their clinical relevance. Dr Low is Head of the Department of Microbiology at the University Health Network and Mount Sinai Hospital. He is also Medical Director of the Ontario Public Health Laboratories. He is a Professor at the University of Toronto in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology and Department of Medicine.

William MacNee is Professor of Respiratory and Environmental Medicine, University of Edinburgh, Honorary Consultant Physician, Lothian University NHS Trust and is Past President of the ERS. His research interests involve the study of aspects of inflammation in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and particularly the cell and molecular mechanisms of the balance between oxidants and antioxidants in the lungs. He has developed an interest in the processes by which the lungs deal with inhaled toxic substances especially air pollutants.

Geoffrey N Maksym is Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Dalhousie University in Canada. He trained at the Meakins-Christie Institute at McGill University with Dr Jason Bates and Peter Macklem and at Harvard University with Dr Jeffrey Fredberg. He teaches both Engineering and Respiratory Mechanics. Geoff's research is to understand how mechanical forces interact with inflammation and tone to enhance contractile function - in single cells, and he also works with clinicians and engineers to develop new techniques and devices for probing respiratory disease.

Christine McDonald is Acting Director of the Austin Hospital's Department of Respiratory and Sleep Medicine and a Director of the Institute for Breathing and Sleep Medicine at the same institution. Her specialty research interests are chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and lung cancer. She is a member of the Australian Lung Foundation COPD Executive. She has co-authored the Australian Guidelines for Provision of Adult Domiciliary Oxygen Therapy and has a number of ongoing research projects including the role of portable oxygen therapy in COPD, the need for oxygen use while driving, the psychological effects of falls in night time oxygen saturation, home telecare monitoring of COPD, pulmonary rehabilitation and the immunology of lung cancer.

David McKenzie Head of Respiratory and Sleep Medicine at The Prince of Wales Hospital, an Associate Professor at UNSW and Chairman of the Respiratory Clinical Division for South Eastern Sydney and Illawarra Area Health Service. He was the Chairman of a TSANZ/ALF Working Party which developed the Australian and New Zealand evidence based guidelines for the management of COPD and a former member of the committee implementing these guidelines. His main current area of research is in respiratory muscle function, control of breathing, respiratory reflexes and the adaptation of these systems to diseases such as COPD, asthma and sleep apnoea.

Takashi Nakano is Professor of Respiratory Medicine and Professor of Thoracic Oncology, Department of Internal Medicine, Hyogo Medical School, Japan.

Arth Nana is Professor of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University, Deputy Dean of Administration and Human Resources, Faculty of Medicine Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University and Chief, Division of Respiratory Disease and Tuberculosis, Faculty of Medicine Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University. He is President of the Thoracic Society of Thailand and Congress President of the 13th APSR to be held in Bangkok, Thailand in 2008.

John Nicholls moved to Hong Kong in 1988 as a lecturer in Pathology at the University of Hong Kong where in addition to clinical and teaching duties commenced research into the relationship of viruses with the respiratory tract. His publications were focused on the role of Epstein-Barr Virus in Nasopharyngeal carcinoma, a common tumour in the Guangdong region. In 1997, following the first outbreak of H5N1 influenza in humans, he commenced collaboration with the Department of Microbiology to study the pathological effects of avian influenza viruses in the respiratory tract. In 2003 he was a key member of the research team at the University of Hong Kong which isolated and characterized the novel SARS coronavirus which was associated with the global outbreak of 2003. His work on SARS and avian influenza has been published in prestigious journals such as Lancet, PLOS Medicine and Nature Medicine. His current investigative work is looking at the influenza binding sites in the respiratory tract and determining susceptibility to avian influenza in humans and other animals.

Toshihiro Nukiwa is Professor of Respiratory Oncology and Molecular Medicine, Institute of Development, Aging and Cancer, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan, since 1993. He graduated from the University of Tokyo in 1973, did his specialty of Respiratory Medicine in Jichi Medical School, Tochigi, Japan, and studied in the Pulmonary Branch, NHLBI, NIH, Bethesda, USA, in 1984 to 1987. His current research interests are in the field of lung cancer and lung fibrosis, and published widely more than 200 papers in the basic science as well as clinical investigation. He is the immediate past president of the Japanese Respiratory Society.

Robyn O'Hehir is Professor and Director of Allergy, Immunology and Respiratory Medicine, The Alfred hospital and Monash University, Melbourne. She conducts an active program combining clinical and experimental research, education and clinical care, and has published over 150 peer-reviewed articles. Professor O'Hehir holds an Australian NHMRC Program Grant and is Director for the Melbourne node of the Co-operative Research Centre for Asthma and Airways, Australia, a $52 million national cooperative research initiative to decrease the burden of asthma and airways disease.

Ken Ohta is Professor of Medicine and Chief of the Division of Respiratory Medicine and Allergology, Department of Medicine, Teikyo University School of Medicine, Tokyo. He graduated from the University of Tokyo School of Medicine in 1975 and was a research fellow at the National Jewish Medical and Research Center in Denver, USA from 1980 to 1983 and from 1988 to 1989. He is a member of GINA Executive and Science Committee. He is interested in discovering new therapeutic targets and strategies for asthma, COPD and interstitial lung disease.

Lyle Palmer is the Foundation Chair in Genetic Epidemiology at the University of Western Australia, where he is also a Professor in the Schools of Medicine & Pharmacology and Population Health. He is the founder of the Laboratory for Genetic Epidemiology in the Western Australian Institute for Medical Research. His background includes training in clinical epidemiology, human genetics and biostatistics.

Matthew Peters is Head of Thoracic Medicine and Clinical Associate Professor in the Concord Clinical School at the University of Sydney. He has a particular interest in improvements in prevention, diagnosis and outcomes for patients with smoking-related lung disease.

Philip H Quanjer is Professor of Physiology at Leiden University in the Netherlands. He has held the following posts: President, European Society for Clinical Respiratory Physiology: co-founder of the ERS and European Respiratory Journal; scientific secretary of the Working Party Standardization of Lung Function Tests (European Community for Coal and Steel). He is Chairman of the Scientific Board of the Netherlands Asthma Foundation.

Roger Reddel trained as a medical oncologist in Sydney, obtained a PhD in the cellular biology of breast cancer at the University of Sydney, and undertook post-doctoral training in molecular carcinogenesis at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland. Since returning to Australia to set up his own laboratory, he has been studying the molecular genetics of cellular ummortalisation, especially the role of telomere length maintenance. He is the Lorimer Dods Professor at the University of Sydney, and Director of the Children's Medical Research Institute, Westmead, where he also heads the Cancer Research Unit.

Paul Reynolds is a Senior Consultant Physician in Respiratory and Sleep Medicine at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, South Australia. He is also a Practitioner Fellow of the National Health and Medical Research Council and Director of the Lung Research Laboratory in The Hanson Institute, Adelaide, and Clinical Associate Professor, Department of Medicine, University of Adelaide. He occupies numerous committee posts including as Chairman of the Central Programming Committee and member of the executive of the Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand. He is the Principal Convenor of this 12th Congress of the APSR/2nd Joint Congress of the APSR/ACCP.

Mark J Rosen, MD, FCCP, is Immediate Past President of the American College of Chest Physicians, Chief of the Divisions of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine, North Shore Health System, and Professor of Medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, USA. His research interests include the pulmonary complications and critical illness in patients with HIV infection, as well as improving care of patients in the intensive care unit.

Gerald Ryan is a Consultant Physician in the Department of Respiratory Medicine, Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital, WA. He works full-time in this position that includes the Adult Cystic Fibrosis centre for Western Australia. He has an involvement in medical education, particularly pre-vocational training. He is a member of the Postgraduate Medical Council of WA. He has collaborated with A/Professor Fiona Lake and others in the development of 'Teaching on the Run', a training program for clinician teachers.

Nagahiro Saijo, MD, PhD is currently the Deputy Director of the National Cancer Center Hospital East in Chiba, Japan. Dr Saijo was on staff at the National Cancer Center Hospital until 1978, when he became the Head of Internal Medicine there. In 1989 he was named Chief of the Pharmacology division at the National Caner Center Research Institute, a position he held until 1997 when he became Chief of the Medical Oncology Division at the National Cancer Center Hospital. Dr. Saijo served on the Board of Directors for the American Society of Clinical Oncology. He is the President for the Japanese Society for Medical Oncology, Director and Councilor the Japanese Cancer Association and the Japanese Society Lung Cancer. He is currently the President for the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer.

Curtis Sessler, FCCP, FCCM, is the Orhan Muren Professor of Medicine in Pulmonary and Critical Care at the Medical College of Virginia / Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia, where he is Director of Critical Care. He has served the ACCP in many leadership positions, is a member of journal editorial boards, is past-president of the Virginia Thoracic Society and past-chair of the U.S. FDA Pulmonary and Allergy Drug Advisory Panel. His research interests include ICU sedation, mechanical ventilation, and patient safety.

Gerard Silvestri is a Professor of Medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina where he is also the director of the multidisciplinary thoracic oncology clinic. His clinical and research interest is in lung cancer. He has authored over 100 scientific papers. Dr Silvestri is associate editor of the respiratory journal Thorax. He is currently the chair of the American College of Chest Physicians thoracic oncology network. He has just completed working on the College's 2nd edition of the evidenced based practice guidelines on lung cancer.

Leith Sly is a Senior Lecturer with responsibility for education technologies and computer assisted assessment. She heads the Educational Technology group at Curtin University of Technology. Her research interests are assessment using online technologies. She is the Education and Training Co-ordinator for the WHO Collaborating Centre for Research on Children's Environmental Health.

Peter Sly enjoys a high profile with an international reputation in the areas of infant lung function testing, respiratory physiology and clinical management of childhood asthma. His research interests include mechanisms for the development of asthma, measurement of lung function in infants and small children, small animal models of asthma and other respiratory diseases, cystic fibrosis and vaccine preventable diseases. His current appointments are: Head, Division of Clinical Sciences, Telethon Institute of Child Health Research, which he established in 1991; Director, WHO Collaborating Centre for Research on Children's Environmental Health; Professorial Fellow, Department of Paediatrics, University of Western Australia; Senior Principle Research Fellow, National Health & Medical Council; and Respiratory Physician, Princess Margaret Hospital for Children. Professor Sly was awarded a DSc in Clinical Respiratory Physiology and Immunology from the University of Western Australia in 2002.

Stephen Stick is Head of the Department of Respiratory Medicine at the Princess Margaret Hospital for Children, Perth. He graduated in medicine from Cambridge University, UK, trained in paediatrics in the UK and completed paediatric respiratory advanced training in Australia. He has a PhD from the University of Western Australia in respiratory physiology. His is a NHMRC Practitioner Fellow with research interests in epithelial function, cystic fibrosis and environmental exposures and lung disease. He is Deputy President, Australian Council on Smoking and Health and passionate tobacco control advocate.

Janet Stocks, Professor of Respiratory Physiology, leads a series of research programmes based at UCL, Institute of Child Health to develop improved methods of assessing lung function in infants and preschool children. These are used to elucidate the impact of respiratory diseases and their treatment on the developing lung, as well as the detrimental effects of factors such as preterm delivery, intrauterine growth retardation and maternal smoking.

Paul Ananth Tambyah is currently Head of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the National University of Singapore. Born and educated in Singapore, he did postgraduate work in Infectious Diseases at the University of Wisconsin Hospital with Dr Dennis Maki. Since his return to Singapore, he has been Assoc Professor of Medicine, formerly Asst Dean of the School of Medicine and consultant Infectious Disease Physician. He is a member of the Board of the Society of Healthcare Epidemiology in America, The Western Pacific Society of Chemotherapy and numerous other regional and national authorities. His research interests are in nosocomial infections and emerging infectious diseases including SARS, Nipah virus and pandemic influenza.

Hiroyuki Taniguchi is Director, Department of Respiratory Medicine and Allergy, Tosei General Hospital, and Clinical Professor at the Nagoya University School of Medicine. His research interests are Interstitial lung disease, ARDS/ALI, asthma and COPD, and pulmonary rehabilitation.

Chun-Ming Tsai is Professor at the Department of Medicine, School of Medicine, National Yang-Ming University, and Chief of Section of Thoracic Oncology of the Chest Department at the TVGH, Taiwan. He received his MD from the Kaohsiung Medical University in 1976 and his postgraduate training at the Taipei Veterans General Hospital (TVGH) and he was a research fellow at the NCI-Navy Medical Oncology Branch, NCI, NIH, in Bethesda. His research interests lie in the treatment and drug resistance of non-small-cell lung cancer.

Timothy Uyeki is a medical epidemiologist in the Influenza Division, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He has participated in field investigations and collaborated on H5N1 epidemiological investigations with colleagues in Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia, Thailand, China, and Nigeria. He is a member of several World Health Organization H5N1 clinical and scientific committees.

Wisia Wedzicha is Professor of Respiratory Medicine at the Royal Free and University College Medical School, University College London. She has a major interest in the causes, mechanisms and impact of COPD exacerbations and has published extensively on this topic. She also is an expert on home ventilatory support in COPD patients and is currently the Chair of the British Thoracic Society working group on the home oxygen therapy and a member of the Department of Health's External Stakeholders Advisory Group for the Home Oxygen Service. She was a member of the Guideline Development Group for the NICE COPD guidelines. She is a member on the External Reference Group of the COPD National Service Framework (NSF) and Chairs the Acute and Medicine, Devices and Interventions sub-groups. She is currently Editor in Chief of the respiratory journal Thorax, on the Editorial Board of a number of respiratory journals and on the Advisory Board of the British Medical Journal.

Trevor Williams is Clinical Director of The Department of Allergy, Immunology and Respiratory Medicine, The Alfred Hospital and Associate Professor at Monash University in Melbourne. A Melbourne trained respiratory physician, he was a Clinical Research Fellow for the Toronto Lung Transplant Program. Upon his return to Melbourne he helped establish The Alfred Hospital Lung Transplant Program, which in the ensuing 17 years has performed over 650 lung transplant procedures. His main clinical research interests are in the area of severe lung diseases including lung transplantation- particularly immunopathology of chronic rejection, pulmonary hypertension, exercise limitation in severe lung disease and development of novel bronchoscopic approaches to emphysema. He has been a principal investigator on several Phase 1, 2 and 3 clinical trials of pharmacological and non pharmacological therapies for COPD.

Bob Williamson became Professor of Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry at St Mary's Hospital Medical School, University of London, in 1976, where he remained until 1995 when he moved to Melbourne as Director of the Murdoch Institute and Professor of Medical Genetics. He retired in October 2004, and now is an Honorary Senior Principal Fellow of the Murdoch Institute and the University of Melbourne. Bob was involved in the identification of genes for cystic fibrosis, craniofacial abnormalities, heart disease and Alzheimer disease. More recently he has taken a major interest in national science policy and medical and scientific ethics. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science (where he chairs the National Committee for Medicine), a Fellow of the Royal Society, and an Officer of the Order of Australia.

John Wilson graduated with BSc (Hons) from The University of Melbourne in 1975, then MBBS in 1980. He studied the role of inflammation in asthma and completed his PhD before moving to the UK to join a major asthma research group in 1988. He began at the The Alfred in Melbourne in 1992, extending his work in airway wall remodelling. He manages patients with cystic fibrosis and asthma, as well as other lung diseases. His other responsibilities include roles within the RACP and TSANZ and he is Chair of the National Asthma Council of Australia.

Jo Rae Wright, PhD, is a Professor of Cell Biology, Medicine and Pediatrics at Duke University Medical School, Durham, North Carolina, USA. She is also Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School. She is currently President-elect of the American Thoracic Society and will become President in May 2008. Her research is focused on the role of surfactant in lung host defence.

Ian Yang is a Consultant Thoracic Physician at The Prince Charles Hospital, and Senior Lecturer in the School of Medicine, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. His clinical and research work is in the field of thoracic medicine, with a special interest in COPD, asthma, smoking-related lung disease and gene-environment interaction. He is involved in the training of higher degree students in translational research into lung diseases. He and his colleagues recently published a Cochrane systematic review of inhaled steroids in COPD.

Pan-Chyr Yang currently is the Dean and Professor of Medicine, National Taiwan University College of Medicine. He is also the President of Taiwan Society of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine. His major research interests are pulmonary and critical care medicine, lung cancer genomics and molecular biology as well as microarray gene expression technology. His group has identified several novel lung cancer tumour suppressor genes and biomarkers that may have potential for clinical application in personalized therapy of lung cancer.

Wing Wai Yew is Senior Consultant Chest Physician & Chief of Service in Tuberculosis and Chest Unit, Grantham Hospital, Hong Kong and Honorary Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Microbiology, Chinese University of Hong Kong, with research interest in tuberculosis and other mycobacterial diseases.

Caicun Zhou, MD PhD is Director of the Cancer Institute, and Director and Professor of the Department of Oncology, Clinical Trial Research Management, Lung Cancer Research Laboratory of Shanghai Pulmonary Hospital, Tongji University, Shanghai, China. He is also a Committee member of the Chinese Society of Lung Cancer and Chinese Society of Clinical Oncology.

Nicholas Zwar is Professor of General Practice in the School of Public health and Community Medicine at the University of New South Wales. He has had a long involvement in smoking cessation education and research and was lead author of Smoking Cessation Guidelines for Australian General Practice.