Luca Valenti graduated in Medicine in 2000, and Specialized in Internal Medicine in 2005 at the University of Milan. He was then fellow at the Diabetes Research Center at Columbia University, NY and the Department of Internal Medicine, University of Milan, where is now Associate Professor of Internal Medicine at the Department of Pathophysiology and Transplantation, University of Milan. He manages a hepatology and internal medicine outpatient service, and coordinates as head of research and of the Biological Resource Center the clinical and translational research at the Precision Medicine Unit, Department of Transfusion Medicine at the Fondazione IRCCS Ca’ Granda Policlinico Hospital in Milan. His main research interests are metabolic and genetic liver diseases, with a special focus on non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and iron metabolism disorders. He is a member of the EASL Scientific committee and Editor-in-chief of Liver International.

Dr Vallejo-Vaz is a Research Fellow at the Dept. of Medicine, University of Seville, and Research Group of Clinical Epidemiology and Vascular Risk, Institute of Biomedicine of Seville (IBiS), Spain, as well as an honorary lecturer at the Imperial Centre for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention at the School of Public Health, Imperial College London, United Kingdom. He is a specialist in Internal Medicine and PhD in Biomedical Research. Dr Vallejo-Vaz is the Chief Scientist of the EAS Familial Hypercholesterolaemia Studies Collaboration (FHSC), an international study involving investigators from over 65 countries worldwide and registry of FH including over 68,000 cases.

During my PhD-studies, I especially focussed on the role of HDL in vascular cells and macrophages. After my PhD in 2015, I moved to Munich (Germany) for a postdoctoral research stay in the lab of Prof. Christian Weber. Here, I particularly investigated the role of chemokine receptors in atherosclerosis. Additionally, I was able to obtain personal funding to start my independent line of research focussing on the role of the Calcium-Sensing receptor in atherosclerosis. After moving to Maastricht/Aachen in 2019, I also remained active in Munich as group-leader. The main focus of my research group is Immune-Lipid Crosstalk, combining my expertise obtained during my PhD-studies and Postdoctoral research. Since my start as group leader, I have independently conceived and conceptualised several innovative ideas focussing on the interplay between lipids and immune cells, especially in the context of atherosclerosis. Currently, I am also focussing on the interplay between chronic kidney disease and atherosclerosis as part of a recently established research institute called Aachen-Maastricht Cardiorenal Research Institute (AMICARE). Furthermore, we have established novel state-of-the-art techniques in my lab, for example Kinase activity profiling, enabling the measurement of 340 kinases in your sample.

Short Curriculum Vitae Prof. Dr. Luc Van Gaal – Biography Professor of Medicine, Department of Endocrinology, Diabetology and Metabolism, Antwerp University Hospital, Antwerp, Belgium Luc Van Gaal studied medicine at the University of Antwerp, where he graduated in 1978. He obtained a specialist degree in internal medicine and afterwards in endocrinology and metabolism in 1983. Since then, he has become responsible for the Metabolic Unit at the Antwerp University Hospital. In 1992 he became Professor of Medicine at Antwerp University and head of the department. He is currently -as an emeritus professor- honorary consultant at the department of Endocrinology, Diabetology and Metabolism of the University Hospital. Professor Van Gaal’s main clinical and research interests are related to obesity, type 2 diabetes and lipid metabolism. He is a member of many scientific, national and international societies and a member of the Editorial Board of a series of scientific journals. He is a founding member of the Belgian Association for the Study of Obesity (BASO) and Past-President of the Belgian Endocrine Society and the Belgian Diabetes Association. He is also a founding member of the International (IASO) SCOPE programme. In 2000, he was the co-President of the 10th European Congress on Obesity, organized in Antwerp in May 2000. He participated to and/or featured as (country) coordinator or principal investigator a number of clinical (outcome) trials in the field of obesity and diabetes. He is also involved in a number of EU consortia for metabolic diseases, NAFLD and NASH in particular. He has published more than 430 papers in international medical journals, mainly in the areas of general endocrinology, obesity, diabetes, NAFLD and lipids and has contributed to a number of textbooks about obesity.

Professor Vergès graduated in medicine from Paris University in 1986, having specialized in endocrinology, diabetes and metabolic diseases. He gained his post-doctoral fellowship at the National Institute of Health (Bethesda, USA) in Brian Brower's laboratory, performing apolipoprotein kinetic studies using stable isotopes. Since 1991, Professor Vergès has been Professor of Endocrinology and Diabetic Medicine at Dijon University. Chief of the Department of Endocrinology and Diabetes. He is also leading the research team dedicated to “Pathophysiology of dyslipidaemia in humans” in the INSERM Center LNC-UMR1231. He has an expertise in Lipid disorders in Diabetes and Obesity. He has performed many clinical and translational trials in the field of diabetes and lipids, including in vivo lipoprotein kinetic studies.He was General Secretary of the French Society of Endocrinology (SFE) in 2015 and 2016 and has been president of the scientific committee of the French speaking Society for Diabetes (SFD) from March 2015 until March 2018. He has been involved in several national and international recommendations and consensus statements. He has authored over 340 original publications in international journals and presented more than 600 scientific communications at national and international meetings.