ISAAC Steering Committee 2010

Professor Nadia Aït-Khaled

Roles:

• ISAAC Steering Committee
• Regional Coordinator for French-speaking Africa

Professor Aït-Khaled was previously Professor and Head of Department of Pneumology and Functional Respiratory Exploration in Algeria, and is currently the Chief of the Asthma Division and Chair of the Scientific Committee of Respiratory Diseases of the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (IUATLD).

Professor Aït-Khaled's research interests include implementation of projects for lung health, integration with tuberculosis control, standardised case management both for asthma patients and for the main prevalent respiratory diseases, tobacco control and pollution in middle- or low-income countries.

Professor Ross Anderson

Roles:

• ISAAC Steering Committee
• National Coordinator for the United Kingdom
• Phase One principal investigator for Anglia and Oxford, Northeast and Yorkshire, North Thames, North West, South and West, South Thames, Scotland, Trent, Wales, West Midlands

Ross Anderson is professor of Epidemiology and Public Health at St Georges Hospital Medical School and is Head of the Department of Public Health.

Professor Anderson's research interests include respiratory epidemiology, especially asthma, and the health effects of air pollution.

Professor Innes Asher

Roles:

• Chairperson of the ISAAC Steering Committee
• Chairperson of the ISAAC Executive
• ISAAC Steering Committee
• Director, ISAAC International Data Centre
• National Coordinator for New Zealand
• Phase One Principal Investigator for Auckland

Professor Asher is head of the Department of Paediatrics: Child and Youth Health at the University of Auckland and a Consultant Paediatrician at the Starship Children's Hospital, Auckland.

Professor Asher's current research interests include asthma epidemiology, bronchiectasis, inhaler devices and poverty and child health.

Professor Richard Beasley

Roles:

• ISAAC Steering Committee
• Phase One Coordinator
• Phase Three Coordinator

Richard Beasley is Director of the Medical Research Institute of New Zealand and Visiting Professor at the University of Southampton, United Kingdom.

Professor Beasley's research interests are in the field of asthma include management and epidemiology.

Professor Bengt Björkstén

Roles:

• ISAAC Executive
• ISAAC Steering Committee
• Regional Coordinator for Northern and Eastern Europe
• National Coordinator for Sweden

Bengt Björkstén is Professor of Paediatrics and Allergy Prevention and Director of the Centre for Allergy Research at the Karolinksa Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden and adjunct professor at Tartu University, Estonia.

Professor Björkstén's research interests include the development of immune responses to allergens in relation to genetic factors. Particular interest is devoted to the influence of environmental factors on this process. Professor Björkstén is also actively involved in cross-sectional and prospective epidemiological studies of childhood allergy in Eastern and Northern Europe.

Professor Bert Brunekreef

Roles:

• ISAAC Steering Committee
• Phase Two principal investigator for The Netherlands
• Member of the steering committee of the EU funded ISAAC Phase II study (coordinator Stephan Weiland)

Bert Brunekreef is professor of Environmental Epidemiology at and director of the Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences at Utrecht University, the Netherlands.

Professor Brunekreef has a research interest in the role of environmental factors causing or aggravating allergic disease.

Professor Julian Crane

Roles:

• ISAAC Steering Committee
• Phase One Principal Investigator for Wellington

Professor Crane is HRC Principal Research Fellow at the Wellington Asthma Research Group, Wellington School of Medicine.

Professor Crane's research interests include asthma epidemiology, asthma treatment and asthma management.

Mrs Philippa Ellwood

Roles:

• ISAAC Steering Committee
• ISAAC International Data Centre

Mrs Ellwood is the Senior Project Manager at the ISAAC International Data Centre and is responsible for international and national coordination of Phase One and Phase Three.

Dr Carsten Flohr

Roles:

• ISAAC Steering Committee
• Phase Two Publications Committee

Dr Flohr has trained in Paediatrics and Dermatology and also has an MSc in Epidemiology. He is Senior Lecturer and Consultant in Paediatric Dermatology at the Department of Paediatric Allergy & Dermatology, St Thomas’ Hospital and King’s College London. Carsten’s main research area is the epidemiology of childhood eczema, but he has a keen interest in allergic disease beyond the skin. For instance, Carsten recently spent three years working on helminth-allergy links based at the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit in Vietnam.

Dr Sunia Foliaki

Roles:

• ISAAC Steering Committee
• Regional Coordinator for Oceania

For the past eight years Sunia has been based at the Ministry of Health in his native home Nuku'alofa, Kingdom of Tonga. He has now been awarded a two-year Wellcome Trust Fellowship and will be based with Neil Pearce at the Centre for Public Health Research at Massey University in Wellington, New Zealand.

Dr Francesco Forastiere

Roles:

• ISAAC Steering Committee

Dr Francesco Forastiere is a medical doctor with a long professional experience in epidemiology. He is head of a regional center dedicated to environmental epidemiology.

Dr Forastiere's research interests include environmental epidemiology, especially asthma and COPD, and the health effects of air pollution.

Professor Luis García-Marcos

Roles:

• ISAAC Executive
• ISAAC Steering Committee
• National Coordinator for Spain

Luis García-Marcos is Professor of Paediatrics and Director of the Institute of Respiratory Health at the University of Murcia. Professor García-Marcos' research interests include asthma epidemiology and genetics as well as inflammatory markers in exhaled breath condensate.

Professor Dr med Ulrich Keil

Roles:

• ISAAC Steering Committee
• Regional Coordinator for Western Europe
• National Coordinator for Germany
• Principal Investigator for Münster

Professor Keil is Chair of the Institute for Epidemiology and Social Medicine at the University of Münster and has previously held senior research positions at the University of North Carolina and Ruhr University Bochum. Professor Keil has also served as advisor to national and international scientific councils including the World Health Organisation (WHO), the German Research Board, the Science Advisory Board of Germany and the BIOMED programs of the European Union.

Professor Keil's research interests include the epidemiology of cardiovascular diseases, the epidemiology of respiratory disease and occupational epidemiology.

Dr Chris Lai

Roles:

• ISAAC Steering Committee
• Regional Coordinator for Asia-Pacific
• Phase One Principal Investigator for Hong Kong 13-14 year age group

Dr Lai is Adjunct Professor at the Division of Respiratory Medicine, Department of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Dr Lai's research interests include asthma epidemiology and pharmacology.

Professor Javier Mallol

Roles:

• ISAAC Steering Committee
• Regional Coordinator for Latin America

Professor Mallol is Professor of Pediatric and Director of the Department of Pediatric Respiratory Medicine, Hospital CRS El Pino, Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Santiago de Chile (USACH).

Professor Mallol's research interests are pulmonary function in infants and children, recurrent wheezing in infants, asthma prevalence and treatment, and aerosol therapy.

Professor Ed Mitchell

Roles:

• ISAAC Steering Committee
• ISAAC International Data Centre

Ed Mitchell is Professor of Child Health Research at the University of Auckland, New Zealand.

Professor Mitchell's research interests include the epidemiology of asthma, sudden infant death syndrome and low birthweight.

Professor Stephen Montefort

Roles:

• ISAAC Steering Committee
• Regional Coordinator for Eastern Mediterranean
• Principal Investigator for Malta

Professor Stephen Montefort is a consultant respiratory physician at St. Luke's Hospital, Malta and a lecturer in Medicine and Clinical Pharmacology at the University of Malta.

Professor Montefort's research interests include respiratory epidemiology and asthma pathophysiology.

Professor Neil Pearce

Roles:

• ISAAC Executive
• ISAAC Steering Committee
• Chairperson of the Data and Publications Sub-committee
• Phase Three Principal Investigator for Wellington

Professor Pearce's research interests include epidemiologic methods, asthma epidemiology, occupational, epidemiology, cancer epidemiology and social epidemiology.

Professor Colin F Robertson

Roles:

• ISAAC Steering Committee
• National Coordinator for Australia
• Principal Investigator for Melbourne

Professor Robertson is the Director of Respiratory Medicine at the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne, Australia.

Professor Robertson's research interests include the epidemiology of asthma, respiratory physiology, cystic fibrosis and clinical trials in a range of paediatric respiratory conditions.

Mr Alistair Stewart

Roles:

• ISAAC Steering Committee
• ISAAC International Data Centre

Alistair Stewart is a biostatistician in the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences at the University of Auckland with a position of Senior Research Fellow.

Mr Stewart provides a biostatistical consulting service to researchers in the Faculty and beyond and by doing so is involved in a wide range of research projects. His interests are in the application of statistical methods to data arising from epidemiological and other studies.

Professor David Strachan

Roles:

• ISAAC Executive
• ISAAC Steering Committee
• Phase Two Coordinator
• Principal Investigator for Surrey/Sussex

Professor Strachan is professor of epidemiology at St Georges Hospital Medical School, London, UK.

Professor Strachan's research interests include the natural history of respiratory disease from early childhood to adult life, time trends in asthma and allergy, and environmental influences on respiratory and allergic disease, including indoor air quality, aeroallergens and outdoor air pollution. Recently Professor Strachan has also been involved in studies of chronic infections and cardiovascular disease.

Professor Dr. med. Erika von Mutius

Roles:

• ISAAC Steering Committee

Dr Erika von Mutius is Professor of Pediatrics at Munich University Children's Hospital and Head of the Outpatient Clinic for Asthma and Allergy.

Professor von Mutius' research interests include the epidemiology of childhood asthma and allergies with a focus on environmental predictors and gene-environment interactions.

Dr Gudrun Weinmayr

Roles:

• ISAAC Steering Committee
• Director, Phase Two Data Centre

Gudrun Weinmayr is an epidemiologist and research fellow at the Institute of Epidemiology at Ulm University.

Dr Weinmayr's research interests are in Epidemiology of childhood asthma and rhinitis, and the health effects of air pollution.

Professor Hywel Williams

Roles:

• ISAAC Steering Committee
• Dermato-Epidemiologist with an interest in childhood eczema

Professor Williams is Foundation Professor of Dermato-Epidemiology at the University of Nottingham where he directs the Centre of Evidence-Based Dermatology (www.nottingham.ac.uk/dermatology). There, he works as coordinating editor of the Cochrane Skin Group, chairs the Comprehensive Clinical Research Network dermatology specialty group, and the UK Dermatology Clinical Trials Network . He is clinical lead for the UK Skin Disorders National Library for Health and works as an honorary clinical dermatology consultant at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust. Professor Williams is an NIHR senior investigator and past director and founder of the University of Nottingham Clinical Trials Support Unit. He has now been appointed the new Chair of the NIHR Health Technology Assessment (HTA) Commissioning Board and Deputy Director of the HTA Programme.

Professor Williams' research interests include the causes and treatment of childhood eczema and evidence-based medicine applied to skin disorders.

Professor Gary Wong

Roles:

• ISAAC Steering Committee
• Phase Three Principal Investigator for Hong Kong

Gary Wong is Professor at the Department of Paediatrics: Child and Youth Health and School of Public Health of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He completed his medical and fellowship training in Canada and Germany.

Professor Wong’s research interests include epidemiology of atopic disorders, non-invasive monitoring of asthma, and gene-environment interaction of asthma. He is currently a member of the Executive Committee of the Global Initiative For Asthma (GINA).