Scientific Committee
A global network of leading experts
Global Representation
WBC 2027 will feature comprehensive coverage of bronchiectasis research, clinical management, and patient care across the following key topic areas:
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Our scientific committee spans 5 continents and 11+ countries, bringing diverse perspectives to advance bronchiectasis research worldwide.
🇺🇸 USA
Mayo Clinic
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Dr. Aksamit is a consultant and Professor of Medicine in the Pulmonary Disease and Critical Care Medicine division of Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, USA.
Dr. Aksamit received his undergraduate degree in chemistry from the University of Illinois in Urbana, Illinois; medical degree from Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois; and medical training in internal medicine as well as pulmonary and critical care medicine at the University of Iowa in Iowa City where he was also chief resident. Additional research was completed at Hammersmith Hospital in London, UK. Prior to joining the staff at Mayo Clinic in 1998 he was in private practice in Madison Wisconsin. He has also served previously as director of the Medical Intensive Care unit at Saint Marys Hospital Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota. Dr. Aksamit’s research and clinical interests are focused on mycobacterial disease and bronchiectasis. He has co-authored a previous international statement by the American Thoracic Society and Infectious Disease Society of America on the diagnosis and treatment of nontuberculous mycobacterial pulmonary disease. He was a co-founding member of, and previously served as the chair of the United States Bronchiectasis and NTM Research Registry. He currently is medical director of the Bronchiectasis and NTM 360 initiative with the COPD Foundation and co-chair of Wold Bronchiectasis Day. He has collaborated and closely worked as an investigator on a number of multicenter clinical trials and research projects with international colleagues in Europe, Australia, and Japan involving bronchiectasis and mycobacterial disease. He has additionally served as a scientific adviser for each of the World Bronchiectasis Conferences in Hanover, Milan, Washington DC, Prague, and New York City. Other positions held include past chair of the State of Minnesota Tuberculous Advisory Committee, current medical director of the Olmsted County Public Health Department – Mayo Clinic Tuberculosis Clinic, current director of the Mayo Mycobacterial and Bronchiectasis Clinic, and past medical director of chaplain services Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota.
🇮🇹 Italy
Humanitas University
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Prof. Stefano Aliberti Professor of Respiratory Medicine Humanitas University, Milan, Italy Consultant, Respiratory Unit and Adult Cystic Fibrosis Center, Fondazione IRCCS Ca’ Granda Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico, Milan. Co-chair of the European Bronchiectasis Network (EMBARC). Chair of IRIDE, the Italian Registry of adult bronchiectasis. Chair of the Italian Registry on Non-Tuberculous Mycobacteria (IRENE).
🇺🇸 USA
NYU Grossman School of Medicine
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NYU Grossman School of Medicine
🇸🇬 Singapore
Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, NTU
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Prof Chotirmall is an internationally recognized clinician-scientist with an established translational respiratory research group at the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, NTU Singapore. To date, he has performed key work on endo-phenotyping pulmonary infection, including the use of next generation sequencing approaches, in the context of chronic inflammatory respiratory diseases that have led to >200 publications including those in Nature Medicine, the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), Cell Host and Microbe, Nature Microbiology, the European Respiratory Journal (ERJ) and the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine (AJRCCM). He continues clinical practice at Tan Tock Seng Hospital, Singapore and currently serves as Vice Dean (Research) at the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, NTU Singapore and Deputy Editor at the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine (AJRCCM).
🇺🇸 USA
National Jewish Health
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Charles L. Daley, M.D., is Professor of Medicine at National Jewish Health (NJH), the University of Colorado, and Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He is Chief of the Division of Mycobacterial and Respiratory Infections and Director of the Nontuberculous Mycobacteria (NTM) Center of Excellence at NJH. Dr. Daley was the inaugural chair of the US Bronchiectasis Research Registry, and he chaired the revision of the ATS-led multi-society NTM guideline. He has been recognized as one of the “Best Doctors in America” by U.S. News & World Report and Castle Connolly and he received the World Lung Health Award given by the American Thoracic Society. He was previously Associate Editor of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine and Associate Editor of The European Respiratory Journal. His academic interests include clinical and translational research in tuberculosis, NTM infections and bronchiectasis.
🇮🇳 India
C. K. Birla Hospitals, Kolkata
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- Director and Head of Dept, Pulmonology, C K group of Hospitals, Kolkata.
- Academic Director C K BIRLA group of Hospitals Immediate Past Secretary, Indian Chest Society Director, Asia Pacific Alliance for Control of Influenza (APACI)
- Founder Member South East Asian Academy of Sleep Medicine (SEAASM)
- Google Scholar: H-index: 31; i10-index: 65
- Chairman, Specialist Advisory Board, Government of India
- Lead author for Bronchiectasis India Registry
- Part of the workstream to update WHO Public Health Research Agenda for influenza
- Associate Editor for Respirology, Thorax and Assistant Editor of Lung India
- Dronocharya Award for Excellence in Continuing Medical Education in India (IHW),
- Indira Gandhi Gold Medal for Outstanding achievement in Medicine (GEPRA)
🇺🇸 USA
University of Pennsylvania
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University of Pennsylvania
🇺🇸 USA
Medical University of South Carolina
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Medical University of South Carolina
🇺🇸 USA
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🇺🇸 USA
National Jewish Health
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National Jewish Health
🇿🇦 South Africa
University of KwaZulu-Natal
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Prof Refiloe Masekela PhD
Dean and Head of School of Medicine
Nelson R Mandela School of Medicine University of KwaZulu-Natal
Professor Refiloe Masekela serves as the Dean and Head of the School of Medicine at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) and holds the position of Full Professor specializing in Paediatric Pulmonology. She is an NIHR Global Health Research Professor, leading research on asthma interventions in paediatric populations. Her primary research interests encompass the epidemiology of asthma, with a focus on equitable access to affordable medicines for individuals living with chronic respiratory diseases, enhancement of access to pulmonary diagnostic testing in African settings, and the design and evaluation of interventions aimed at optimising lung health in chronic respiratory disease cohorts. Professor Masekela is also a faculty member at the Africa Health Research Institute (AHRI), contributing to multidisciplinary research initiatives that address pressing respiratory health challenges in low- and middle-income countries.
Professor Masekela is internationally recognised as a global leader in asthma and holds multiple leadership positions in prominent professional societies and networks. She serves as co-Chair of the Global Asthma Network (GAN), President of the Pan African Thoracic Society (PATS), a Science Committee Member for the Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA), and a member of the European Respiratory Society’s Global Lung Initiative (GLI) Network. At the national level, she is the President of the South African Thoracic Society. Through these roles, she contributes to the development of international guidelines, advances in asthma research, and the strengthening of collaborative networks for respiratory health across Africa and beyond.
A core component of Professor Masekela’s professional mission is research capacity strengthening and the cultivation of the next generation of respiratory health researchers in Africa. She serves as co-Director of the Pan African Thoracic Society Methods in Epidemiology, Clinical and Operational Research (PATS-MECOR) programme, which provides structured training in epidemiological, clinical, and operational research methodologies to healthcare workers across the continent.
🇺🇸 USA
University of Connecticut School of Medicine
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Dr. Metersky is Professor of Medicine and Chief of the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine at the University of Connecticut. He has had a long-standing interest in pulmonary infections, having published over 150 articles on pneumonia, bronchiectasis and non-tuberculous mycobacterial disease, including as Co-Chair of the 2016 ATS-IDSA National Guideline on Ventilator Associated and Hospital-Acquired Pneumonia. Since 2009, he has been the Director of the UConn Center for Bronchiectasis Care, and for several years served as Chair of the United States Bronchiectasis and NTM Research Registry.
🇦🇺 Australia
Department of Respiratory Medicine, Concord Hospital
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Professor Lucy Morgan
University of Sydney
Concord Hospital/ Nepean Hospital/ Macquarie University Hospital
Professor Lucy Morgan studied medicine at the University of Newcastle ( Australia) after studying botany at the University of Sydney. She returned to Concord Hospital to complete her training in Respiratory Medicine and then her PhD in the measurement of Mucociliary Clearance.
She has spent the last 25 years working with the Concord Centre for Cilia and establishing a multidisciplinary PCD and Bronchiectasis service.
Lucy was the foundation chair of the Australasian Bronchiectasis Consortium and the PI of the Australian Bronchiectasis Registry. She is chair of Lung Foundation Australia. Her career highlight , to date , was being the Chair of the organizing committee for WBC 2025 in Brisbane.
🇯🇵 Japan
Fukujuji Hospital, Japan Anti-Tuberculosis Association
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Kozo Morimoto, MD, Ph.D, is a pulmonologist at Fukujuji Hospital, Anti-Tuberculosis Association, Tokyo, where he serves as Chief of the Division of Clinical Research at the Respiratory Disease Center. He is also a professor in the Department of Clinical Mycobacteriosis at Nagasaki University Graduate School of Biomedical Science and a principal researcher at the Research Institute of Tuberculosis. Prof. Morimoto leads various projects within the division and department, focusing on the design and analysis of epidemiological and clinical studies of pulmonary diseases, particularly NTMPD and bronchiectasis.
Prof. Morimoto has published more than 100 articles in international peer-reviewed journals and contributed four book chapters on NTMPD. He is a board member of the Nontuberculous mycobacteriosis and bronchiectasis- Japan Research Consortium(JRC). Additionally, he is a member of the International Relations Committee of the Japanese Respiratory Society and the Nontuberculous Mycobacteriosis Control Committee of the Japanese Society for TB and NTM.
🇰🇷 South Korea
Asan Medical Center, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Seoul
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Yeon-Mok Oh is a professor of medicine at the Department of Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Asan Medical Center, Seoul, Korea. In addition, he is a president of Obstructive Lung Disease Research Foundation in Korea.
Prof. Oh completed his medical degree at the Seoul National University College of Medicine in 1990, and subsequently underwent general internal medicine and pulmonary medicine training at the Seoul National University Hospital. From 2000 to 2002, he had a postdoctoral fellowship at Cardiovascular Research Institute, Univ. California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA. In addition, he was a visiting professor at Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA, USA. Prof. Oh earned his MS degree from the Seoul National University in 1994, and his PhD in 2006.
Prof. Oh is an authority on the respiratory diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), asthma and bronchiectasis. He is the author of more than 466 publications and the textbook which provides readers with an overview of COPD, the current understanding of its pathobiology, and a contemporary approach to diagnosis and treatment. Moreover, he has actively led the clinical trials for COPD, asthma and bronchiectasis based on clinical big data as the principal investigator.
🇺🇸 USA
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
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Dr. Olivier is the Michael E. Hatcher Distinguished Professor of Medicine and Research Director of the UNC Bronchiectasis/NTM Care and Research Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research is focused on pathogenesis and population characteristics of bronchiectasis and chronic airway infection such as the nontuberculous mycobacteria and he has been actively engaged in therapeutics development in these areas. He has been a long-term investigator in the Genetic Disorders of Mucociliary Clearance Consortium with a focus on both primary ciliary dyskinesia and primary immune deficiency.
🇩🇪 Germany
Hannover Medical School (MHH) and German Center for Lung Research
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Felix C. Ringshausen is a board-certified physician for respiratory medicine and infectious diseases and head of the Adult Bronchiectasis and Cystic Fibrosis Service at the Hannover Medical School, Germany. In addition, he is principal investigator of the German Center for Lung Research (DZL). His research interests are focused on European multidisciplinary networks and multicenter initiatives in order to promote clinically orientated research and improve patient care in the field of rare, neglected and under-researched aspects of respiratory infections like bronchiectasis, nontuberculous mycobacteria, respiratory viruses and adult cystic fibrosis.
🇨🇦 Canada
University of Calgary
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University of Calgary
🇨🇳 China
Tongji Hospital, Tongji University
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Professor, Chief Physician, Department of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine;
Vice President of Shanghai Pulmonary Hospital;
Head of Institute of Respiratory Medicine, School of Medicine, Tongji University, Shanghai
Standing member of Chinese Thoracic Society;
Elected Chairman of Shanghai Thoracic Society;
Founder and Executive Chairman of Bronchiectasis Registry China (BE-China)
Prof. Jin-fu Xu graduated and got his Medical Degree from Tongji Medical University (Wuhan), and got his PhD from Shanghai Medical College, Fudan University. He worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School in Boston.
Prof. Xu works as respiratory physician. His research is focusing on bronchiectasis, COPD and lung infections. He published over 100 articles in journals, including Nature Immunology, Lancet Digital Health, AJRCCM, European Respiratory Journal, EMBO molecular medicine, Chest, eBioMedicine, Clinical Microbiology and Infection, JEM, etc. He authored or was editor of 10 books.
Prof. Xu is the Founder and executive chairman of Bronchiectasis Registry China (BE-China) (http://www.chinabronchiectasis.com/), which is including more than 106 hospitals, the largest clinical study platform and the only one for bronchiectasis in China. He issued the Chinese Guideline of Diagnosis and Treatment of Bronchiectasis 2021. He is the Chief Editor of <Bronchiectasis> which is the first book of bronchiectasis in China. He is the Associate editor of Respiratory Research, and the Scientific editorial board member of Clinical Microbiology and Infection.
🇺🇸 USA
University of California-San Francisco
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University of California-San Francisco
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