Dr Katarzyna Bierła (Ostrów Wielkopolski, Poland)
specialist paediatrician and neonatologist. Head of the neonatal unit of the Hospital in Ostrow Wielkopolski.
Dr Witold Błaż (Rzeszów, Poland)
works in the Department of Newborns with the Intensive Care Unit of the Newborn and Provincial Cardiac Clinic for Children of the Clinical Provincial Hospital No. 2 in Rzeszow. The main interests are haemodynamics, cardiopulmonary interactions, comprehensive care of a premature baby on the verge of survival.
Prof. Hector Boix (Barcelona, Hiszpania)
he is the Neonatal Research Coordinator of the Vall d’Hebron University Hospital. He is member of the Board of the Spanish Neonatal Society, member of the Research Committee of the Spanish Neonatal Society. He has been involved in clinical research related to birth asphyxia and neuroprotection. His current research is focused on the impact of the first hours of life on the neurodevelopmental outcome.
Dr Helen Chitty (Middlesbrough, UK)
she is a Consultant Neonatologist from The James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough, UK. As part of her postgraduate higher degree at Newcastle University she undertook a randomised controlled trial comparing two types of volume-targeted ventilation in preterm infants. For this she was awarded the Richard D. Rowe Clinical Research Award from The Society of Pediatric Research in 2017. Through her thesis, she also explored wider themes of research into complex interventions and methods of consent for emergency interventions research.
Prof. Janusz Gadzinowski (Poznan, Poland)
former Head of the Department of Neonatology at the Medical University of Poznan. Former National and Provincial Consultant for Neonatology. The organization of perinatal care, which is reflected in the conduct of two European framework programs: MOSAIC, EPICE and SHIPS, pulmonology and the impact of the use of reproductive technologies on the health of newborns and infants are his mainstream interests.
Prof. Dariusz Gruszfeld (Warsaw, Poland)
paediatrician and specialist in the field of neonatology. Deputy Head of the Neonatology, Pathology and Intensive Therapy of the Newborn Clinic in the Institute of the “Children’s Memorial Health Center” in Warsaw. Co-author and author of publications in national and foreign magazines devoted to infant nutrition and the impact of early nutrition on further development. He cooperates with the team of prof. Berthold Koletzko from Munich. He participates in the implementation of the EU projects on “nutritional programming”:„Childhood obesity – early programming by infant nutrition” – CHOP, „Early Nutrition Programming Project” – EARNEST, “The Effect of Diet on Mental Performance of Children”- NUTRIMENTHE, “EarlyNutrition”.
Prof. Ewa Gulczyńska (Łódź, Poland)
graduated from the Medical University of Lodz. Specialist in paediatrics and neonatology. She is the head of the Neonatology Clinic of the Polish Mother’s Health Center. Since 2002 she has been a National Consultant in the field of neonatology. Scientific interests include pharmacokinetics and monitoring therapy, neonatal care for newborns with extremely low body mass, advanced ventilation techniques, exogenous surfactant therapy and nutritional therapy.
Prof. Ewa Helwich (Warsaw, Poland)
Head of the Neonatology and Intensive Therapy Clinic of the Mother and Child Institute in Warsaw. National Consultant in the field of neonatology. The main areas of interest are early brain damage, their clinical evolution and their impact on development.
Prof. Claus Klingenberg (Tromso, Norway)
he is lead consultant in the NICU at the University Hospital of North-Norway, Tromsø, Norway. He has also worked in Tanzania and he spent a sabbatical year at the NICU in Royal Women’s Hospital in Melbourne, Australia in 2009-2010. During that year he took part in animal experiments on asphyxia. Klingenberg is author of a Norwegian manual in neonatal care. He has published several articles with a particular focus on neonatal infections, respiratory care and resuscitation.
Prof. Barbara Królak-Olejnik (Wrocław, Poland)
Head of the Department of Neonatology at the Medical University of Piastow Slaskich in Wroclaw. Multiple scholarship holder of the University Hospital in Bergen in 1996-2000. The main areas of research interest concern perinatal care and the promotion of natural feeding as well as the assessment of biochemical and immunological parameters of intrauterine infection of the foetus and newborn baby.
Dr Anna Lavizzari (Mediolan, Italy)
she is a neonatologist. She completed training in Pediatrics and Neonatology and works in department of Clinical Sciences and Community Health, University of Milan, Italy. Her research projects have been mainly focused on neonatal: non-invasive respiratory support, respiratory mechanics, resuscitation and minimally invasive surfactant administration. Collaboration in experimental research on the long-term complications of prematurity and prolonged mechanical ventilation in preterm lambs. Consultant neonatologist in the NICU at Fondazione IRCCS Cà Granda Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico, Milan – since December 2014. Secretary of the PICU and NICU group of the European Respiratory Society, member of the Pulmonology Board of the Italian Neonatal Society and elected young member of the Pulmonology Board of the ESPR.
Prof. Iwona Maroszyńska (Łodz, Poland)
specialist in paediatrics and neonatology. Head of the Intensive Therapy and Congenital Newborn and Infant Defects Institute at the Polish Mother’s Memorial Health Center in Łodz. Chairwoman of the Lodz branch of the Polish Neonatal Society. Clinical areas of interest: neonatal respiratory failure, circulatory disorders in newborns, the optimization of neonatal care with congenital malformation. Research interests: monitoring and treatment of microcirculatory disorders in newborns; prophylaxis of perioperative infections in newborns.
Prof. Iwona Maruniak-Chudek (Katowice, Poland)
paediatrician and neonatologist specialist, head of the Intensive Care and Pathology Clinic of the Newborn of the Upper Silesian Children’s Health Center of the Silesian Medical University in Katowice. Professional interests: sepsis, diagnostics of infections, renal failure and metabolic disorders.
Dr Marek Migdał (Warsaw, Poland)
paediatrician and pulmonologist. Head of the “Long-Term Home Care Team and Long-term Home Care Team for Children” at the “Children’s Memorial Health Center” in Warsaw. Author of over 180 publications. Co-founder of the first Polish chronic home ventilation program in children. From 2014, he has been a member of the board of the European Society of Paediatric and Neonatal Intensive Care (ESPNIC).
Prof. Corrado Moretti (Rome, Italy)
Emeritus Consultant in Department of Paediatrics, Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, Policlinico Umberto I, Sapienza University of Rome. Member of the Scientific Board of “Fondazione Sapienza”. Vice-President of UENPS (Union European Neonatal Perinatal Societies). Personal skills: Neonatal and Paediatric Anaesthesia and Intensive Care Medicine, Mechanical Ventilation and Bronchoscopy.
Dr Natalia Neumann-Klimasińska (Poznan, Poland)
junior assistant at the Department and Clinic of Neonatology at the Poznan University of Medical Sciences, her professional interests focus on improving methods of non-invasive breathing support in newborns born prematurely, functional echocardiography enthusiast, contributing to the Laboratory of Biophysical Diagnostics and Cardiopulmonary Respiratory Therapy at the Gynaecology and Obstetrics Clinical Hospital in Poznan.
Prof. Magdalena Rutkowska (Warsaw, Poland)
paediatrician, neonatologist. Deputy Head of the Neonatology and Intensive Therapy Clinic of the Newborn Institute of Mother and Child in Warsaw. Author of over 80 scientific papers including monographs and chapters for textbooks published in Polish and foreign literature. Lecturer at numerous national and international conventions and courses.
Research interests: respiratory problems in the newborn in particular surfactant treatment, bronchopulmonary dysplasia, long-term assessment of the development of a premature infant, palliative care in the perinatal period and ethical problems.
Prof. Manuel Sanchez Luna (Madrid, Spain)
he is a Medical Director of the Neonatology Division and NICU at HOSPITAL GENERAL UNIVERSITARIO “GREGORIO MARAÑON” Level IIIc, academic center associated to the Complutense University and belonging to the National Health System, Madrid (SPAIN). He is a President of the Union of European Neonatal and Perinatal Societies (UENPS) and President of the International Neonatology Association (INA). Author of more than 150 publications in national and International scientific journals and books. Areas of interest: Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia, Respiratory physiology, Sepsis, Shock, personalized nutrition.
Prof. Yogen Singh (Cambridge, UK)
he is a Consultant Neonatologist and Paediatric Cardiologist at Cambridge University Hospitals in the UK. He is an Associate Lecturer at the University of Cambridge and he holds an Honorary Consultant position at Great Ormond Street Hospital London.
He has special interest in neonatal haemodynamics, functional echocardiography and advanced functional echocardiography. He is the lead author for the “Expert Consensus Statement on Neonatologist Performed Echocardiography (NPE) in the UK”. He is a member of the European Neonatologist Performed Echocardiography Steering group. He is a course director at ‘Cambridge Paediatric and Neonatal Echocardiography Course’. As an expert in functional echocardiography, he is frequently invited to give talks in the international conferences and he has facilitated over 20 echo workshops / courses in UK, Europe, USA, and beyond.
Prof. Piotr Socha (Warsaw, Poland)
professor of paediatrics and gastroenterology in the Department of Gastroenterology, Hepatology, Nutritional Disorders and Paediatrics and Deputy Director for Science at the Institute of Child Health (CMHI) in Warsaw, which is the reference paediatric hospital for Poland. His research and clinical work have been devoted mainly to cholestatic liver disease, non-alcoholic steatohepatitis, rare metabolic liver diseases (e.g. Wilson’s disease, newly described PGM-1), nutrition in hepatology and gastroenterology (e.g. LCPUFA deficiency), obesity in the range of prevention and the treatment of obesity, feeding disorders, chronic diarrhoea at young children. Professor was a chairman of the ESPGHAN Hepatology Committee (2010-2013) and he was appointed the ESPGHAN Scientific Secretary in 2015. He participated in 8 EU projects (CHOP, EUROWILSON, EARNEST, PERFECT, NUTRIMENTHE, TOYBOX, EARLY Nutrition, Kids4Life) as well as he was the president of the Polish Society of Children’s Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Children’s Nutrition. He has published over 400 reviewed articles (about 200 indexed in pubed) and he is the author of 40 chapters in books.
Prof. Jerzy Szczapa (Poznan, Poland)
former Head of Infection Clinic of Newborns of the Medical University of Poznan. Long-term President of the Polish Neonatological Society, co-founder of the European Union of Neonatological and Perinatological Societies, editor-in-chief of the “Postępy Neonatologii” (Advances in neonatology) magazine. His scientific interests concern the issues of pathology and intensive care, with particular emphasis on infections of the neonatal period.
Dr hab. Tomasz Szczapa (Poznan, Poland)
Adjunct Professor at the Neonatology Clinic of the Medical University in Poznan. He is the Education Officer at the European Board of Neonatology (EBN / ESPR). He has the qualifications of an instructor and director of the Newborn Life Support (NLS) courses of the European Resuscitation Council (ERC). Co-organizer of NLS courses in Poznan and Warsaw and other trainings and workshops on resuscitation of a newborn. He was one of the initiators and co-authors of the Polish language version of the NLS course. In addition to resuscitation, his interests mainly concern issues in the broadly understood intensive care of the newborn (including mechanical ventilation, CNS monitoring).
Prof. Marta Szymankiewicz-Bręborowicz (Poznan, Poland)
Head of the Department of Neonatology at the Medical University of Poznan. Chairwoman of the Polish Society of Perinatal Medicine, Provincial Consultant for Neonatology. Main scientific interests: research on breathing mechanics, neonatological and paediatric aspects of in vitro fertilization, foetus and newborn infections.
Prof. Marianne Thoresen (Bristol, UK)
Marianne Thoresen, Professor of Neonatal Neuroscience, University of Bristol, United Kingdom and Professor of Physiology, University of Oslo, Norway. Perinatal asphyxia is a major cause of permanent brain injury in infants. Although development of therapeutic hypothermia has improved outcome in survivors by 15% and reduced mortality, more effective treatment is needed. Results obtained at 1½ – 2 years of age may not fully predict long-term outcome, including cognition, behavioural problems and epilepsy. The system of selecting patients that need cooling therapy – and the cooling protocol itself – need revision from the methods used in the original randomised controlled trials. Developing and optimising hypothermia treatment is the field I am currently working in.
Prof. Maximo Vento (Walencja, Hiszpania)
Professor of Pediatrics, Division of Neonatology, University and Polytechnic Hospital La Fe (Valencia; Spain). Principal Investigator Neonatal Research Group & Scientific Director Health Research Institute La Fe (Valencia; Spain). President of the Spanish Neonatal Society. Member of the American Pediatric Society and Deutsche Gesselschaft für Kinderheilkunde. National Coordinator of the Maternal, Neonatal and Developmental Network SAMID funded by the Health Research Institute Carlos III (Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities; Kingdom of Spain). Chairman of the European Board of Neonatology and Member of the Executive Committee of the European Society for Pediatric Research. Areas of interest: Physiology and physiopathology of the fetal-to-neonatal transition with special emphasis in oxygenation. Oxygen metabolism, biomarkers of hypoxia, oxidative stress, oxidative damage and DNA methylation in animal models and clinical studies. Genomics applied to newborn infection. Scientific contributions: 225 peer-reviewed scientific papers published in international journals. >100 conferences in international scientific meetings. Investigator in International and National funded research projects.
Dr Wojciech Walas (Opole, Poland)
specialist in anaesthesiology and intensive care, neonatology and paediatrics. Associated with the Department of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care of Children and Newborns in Opole since its establishment in 1996, and since 1999 he has been its head. A graduate of the Faculty of Medicine of the Silesian Medical Academy in Zabrze. Doctorate in 1998 on the basis of the work entitled “Assessment of central vein cannulation in newborns in terms of efficacy of surgery and clinical complications”.
Prof. Jarosław Walkowiak (Poznan, Poland)
head of the Department of Child Gastroenterology and Metabolic Diseases, I Department of Paediatrics, Karol Marcinkowski Medical University in Poznan. Vice-president for Human Resources and International Cooperation at the Karol Marcinkowski Medical University in Poznan.
Prof. Lena Westas-Hellstrom (Uppsala, Sweden)
she is Professor of Perinatal Medicine at Uppsala University, and Senior Consultant in Neonatology at the Department of Neonatology, Uppsala University Hospital, Sweden. She is Medical Co-Director at the Karolinska NIDCAP center and Scientific advisor in Neonatology to the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare. She received her medical degree at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm but received most of her clinical training at Lund University Hospital, Sweden. It was also in Lund the pioneering research on amplitude-integrated EEG monitoring started with focus on early prediction of outcome in asphyxiated infants and preterm infants, seizure detection, sleep and pain assessments.
Prof. Andrew Whitelaw (Bristol, UK)
Emeritus Professor of Neonatal medicine, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom. He is a neonatologist who originally studied at the University of Cambridge, then trained in London and Toronto. His research has focused on brain injury in preterm infants, particularly intravantricular hemorrhage and hydrocephalus using laboratory work, epidemiology, ultrasound, MR imaging and neurodevelopmental assessment. He has been principal investigator of 5 randomised treatment trials.
Dr hab. Maria Wilińska (Warsaw, Poland)
neonatologist and paediatrician, head of the Neonatology Clinic of the Prof. Witold Orłowski Independent Public Clinical Hospital of the Postgraduate Medical Education Centre in Warsaw.
M.S. Paweł Zawitkowski (Warsaw, Poland)
NDT-Bobath therapist. Multiple participant and trainer of AFE respiratory therapy courses; a graduate of postgraduate studies “Ethics of medical practice and medical care”, courses: SI-Ayres (Sensory Integration-Ayres), Quality assessment of global movements according to Prechtl; NBAS (the Neonatal Bazelton’s Assessment Scale); NLS (Newborn Life Support); Halliwick (therapy and swimming for the disabled); many workshops and improvement courses. He works, among others, in the Department of Neonatology and Intensive Therapy of the Newborn, Institute of Mother and Child and in the Neonatology Clinic, Subunit of Intensive Care of the Newborn of the Bielany Hospital in Warsaw..