Lucie Bartova, born in Ostrava, Czech Republic, obtained her medical degree (MD) in 2012 at the Medical University of Vienna (MUV) in Austria. As a diploma and subsequently doctoral student at the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy of the MUV, she investigated neuroimaging correlates of acute and remitted major depressive disorder (MDD) under supervision of Assoc.Prof. Priv.Doz. Dr. Lukas Pezawas (ORCID: 0000-0002-1329-6352) and received her scientific degree (PhD) in 2019. Simultaneously, she completed her psychotherapeutic training (psychoanalytic psychotherapy) and residency in psychiatry, whereby she has been involved in clinical, psychopharmacotherapeutic and neuroimaging studies focusing predominantly on MDD and schizophrenia. Under supervision of em.O.Univ.Prof. Dr.h.c.mult. Dr.med. Siegfried Kasper (ORCID: 0000-0001-8278-191X), the former head of the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy of the MUV, enabling her educational opportunities which have constantly widened her scientific, clinical and personal knowledge horizon, Lucie Bartova has increasingly focused on challenging psychiatric conditions such as treatment resistant depression (TRD). She has presented her results at national and international conferences, published in known psychiatric journals, and received performance scholarship of the MUV as well as national and international travel- and research awards. She served as a member of the scientific programme & local organising committee for the CINP Thematic Meeting 2017 in Prague, Czech Republic on the topic of TRD. Since 2021 she has served as a member of the scientific committee of the 33rd CINP World Congress of Neuropsychopharmacology. In 2020 she became a member of the editorial board of the psychiatric journals „International Journal of Psychiatry in Clinical Practice“, „Frontiers in Psychiatry“, „Journal für Neurologie, Neurochirurgie und Psychiatrie“, and “JATROS Neurologie & Psychiatrie”. In 2021 she joined the editorial board of “Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics”. From April 2021 until end of March 2022 she has served as a visiting scientist (focus: TRD) at the Psychiatry Institute at the Department of Biomedical and NeuroMotor Sciences of the University of Bologna in Italy under supervision of Prof. Alessandro Serretti (ORCID: 0000-0003-4363-3759).

Dr. Başar is a faculty member since 2010 in the Department of Psychiatry in Hacettepe University, where he completed his psychiatry residency training in 2007. His main clinical and research interests include mental health related to diversity in sexual development, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, especially the effects of discrimination on mental well-being on the individuals and their families. He is one of the leading experts in gender affirmative medical care in Turkey. His research also focuses on anhedonia, depression and impulsivity. He was trained as a sexual therapist in the Society for Sexual Education, Treatment, and Research in Turkey, served as an executive committee member of the Society in 2018-2020, and still acts as a trainer in various programmes. He is member of the executive committee of the Turkish Society of Nervous and Mental Health. He is associate editor of the Turkish Journal of Psychiatry. He is currently the president of the Psychiatric Associstion of Turkey, where he acted as the secretary general between 2018-2021.

Claudio Bassetti was born and raised in Ticino, is married and father of three boys. He received his MD degree from the University of Basel in 1984. He trained in neurology in Bern and Lausanne and performed research fellowships in basic neurophysiology (Basel) and sleep medicine (Ann Arbor, USA). In 2000 he was appointed professor of neurology at the University of Zurich. In 2009 he founded the Neurocenter of Southern Switzerland which he directed for 3 years. Since 2012 he is full professor of neurology at the University of Bern and director of the neurology department at Inselspital. Bassetti authored over 400 scientific publications and eight books. He pioneered the research on the bidirectional relationship between, sleep, sleep disorders and stroke using both a human and animal/experimental approaches. He made also fundamental contributions to our understanding of narcolepsy, including the recent discovery of specific autoreactive-T lymphocytes supporting the hypothesis of an autoimmune etiology. He served as president of the European Neurological Society, European Sleep Research Society and Swiss Neurological Society and was the founder of the Swiss Federation of Clinical Neurosocieties. In 2018 he became an elected member of the Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences. He currently serves as president of the European Academy of Neurology and as the Dean of the Medical Faculty in Bern.