President 2023/24 European Respiratory Society Professor in Paediatrics, Hannover Medical School (MHH) Director, Department of Paediatrics, Evangelischen Krankenhauses Düsseldorf , Germany Long-standing member of the European Respiratory Society (ERS), currently President of the ERS 2023/2024. Director of the Children’s Hospital at the Evangelical Hospital in Düsseldorf, special interest in paediatric allergy including severe asthma; diagnosis and treatment of food allergy in children. Longstanding interest in early diagnosis of allergy and respiratory diseases and their origins, respiratory physiology and lung function testing. Senior clinical advisor of the GINI study (German Infant Nutrition Intervention); study center for phase 3 clinical trials in paediatric allergy and respiratory diseases. Chair of the Asthma Working Group of the German speaking Society for Pediatric Pneumology (GPP), board member of the West German Working Group for Pediatric Pneumology and Allergology (WAPPA), board member of the Deutsche Atemwegsliga (DAL) and Deutsche Lungenstiftung (DLS). Member of the editorial board of various specialist journals. 1988 - 2008 Medical training (assistant physician, senior physician) at Hannover Medical School: further training in Paediatrics, specialization in Neonatology, additional qualifications in Allergology and Paediatric Respiratory Medicine including the European Diploma. Research fellowship at Great Ormond Street Hospital,London, UK and Institute of Child Health,with Prof.Janet Stocks

Professor Peter Sly is a former Chairman of the Board of Directors for the Pacific Basin Consortium for the Environment and Health, Director, Children’s Health and Environment Program and Director, WHO Collaborating Centre for Children’s Health and Environment. Professor Sly is a NHMRC Senior Principal Research Fellow and a paediatric respiratory physician with extensive research experience in respiratory physiology, developmental immunology and children’s environmental health. Professor Sly’s research aims to understand the mechanisms underlying chronic childhood lung diseases in order to improve clinical management and to delay or prevent their onset, with consequent reductions in adult lung diseases. A combination of basic science, longitudinal cohort studies and translation of research findings into clinical practice, including clinical trials, are included in three main areas: children’s environmental health, asthma, and cystic fibrosis.

Thomas Ferkol, M.D. is a Professor of Pediatrics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. An American Lung Association Edward Livingston Trudeau Scholar and recipient of the Primary Ciliary Dyskinesia Foundation Golden Cilium Award, his research has largely focused on the development of cell and animal models to study cystic fibrosis and primary ciliary dyskinesia, defining genetic and molecular factors that contribute to chronic airway infection, inflammation, and epithelial injury with almost 30-years of continuous funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Dr. Ferkol currently co-leads the NIH-supported Genetic Disorders of Mucociliary Clearance Consortium, an established, multicenter collaborative that is defining the genetics and pathophysiology of inherited, suppurative lung diseases. He has served on numerous international review groups and study sections, and written or co-authored over 200 original articles, scholarly reviews, and book chapters. Finally, Dr. Ferkol was President of the American Thoracic Society, only the second pediatrician to serve in this capacity during the 120-year history of the organization.