Uberto Pagotto (Italy)

Dr. Uberto Pagotto MD, PhD, is Full Professor of Endocrinology and Metabolism and Director of both Endocrinology and Diabetes Units in the Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences, S.Orsola Policlinic, Alma Mater University of Bologna, Italy. He earned his medical degree from Padua University, Padua, Italy, and. after completing his residency and his PhD in Endocrinology, earned his post-doctoral qualification in neuroendocrinology at the Max-Planck-Institute of Psychiatry in Munich, Germany. Since 2001 he is in Bologna. His research has been published in several peer-reviewed journals, such as Endocrine Reviews, Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology, Cell Metabolism, PNAS, The Journal of Clinical Investigation, Diabetes, The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, Trends in Molecular Medicine and Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology. Dr. Pagotto has received several awards, including the 1995 Marius Tausk Award, presented by the German Society of Endocrinology (DGE) to Best Young Scientist in Endocrinology; the 2002 Award for Best Young European Scientist in Basic Neuroendocrinology presented by the European Neuroendocrine Association (ENEA); and the 2011 SIE Award for the More Distinct Italian Endocrinologist under 50 presented by the Italian Society of Endocrinology. He was participant of three European Projects (Union Framework Programmes VI-VII Integrated) “Diabesity”, “Reprobesity” and “Neurofast”. Dr. Pagotto has been designed member presented by the European Society of Endocrinology as “2011 ESE representative on the US Endocrine Society’s clinical practice guideline on medical, nutritional and pharmacologic management of obesity”, he was member of Obedis@ (Guidelines for Obesity Dietary Intervention Sharing), a group of European experts who have to exchange and make concrete suggestions on the more relevant phenotyping criteria, their assessment methods, and their ontology that should be systematically collected in each clinical intervention study of obesity. He has been recently nominated Clinical Lead of the European Society of Endocrinology Diabetes/Obesity/Metabolism/Nutrition Focus Area. Dr. Uberto Pagotto is author of 179 peer reviewed full papers in international journals. His current interests include pharmacotherapy of obesity and the role of steroids in many pathophysiological conditions.

Liesbeth van Rossum (Netherlands)

Liesbeth van Rossum is internist-endocrinologist and professor in the field of obesity and biological stress research at the Erasmus University Medical Center, Rotterdam, Netherlands. She is co-founder of the Obesity Center CGG (Centrum Gezond Gewicht), a center for diagnostics of underlying causes of obesity (e.g. monogenic obesity and endocrine causes) and innovative and personalized treatments. She obtained a MD (cum laude) and PhD (cum laude), and performed an obesity research fellowship in Baltimore, US. In 2020 Van Rossum has been appointed European co-leader of the theme Obesity, Diabetes, Nutrition and Metabolism of the European Society for Endocrinology (ESE) and chair of the national obesity guideline committee. Since 2017 she is chair of the Partnership Overweight Netherlands, an umbrella organization of 16 associations of health care organisations, with an advisory role to the Ministry of Health Welfare and Sport on obesity policy. In this context she has an important role in the National Prevention Agreement of this Ministry, as well as in the nationwide implementation of the combined lifestyle interventions covered by the basic care insurance from 2019 onwards. She received > 20 scientific awards, successfully obtained research funding, published > 170 scientific articles, and was appointed member of the Young Academy of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences (KNAW). In 2020 she was selected as Linkedin Top Voice and Top 10 most influencing women in health care in the Netherlands. In 2021 she was appointed ‘’Rotterdam Woman of the Year”. Van Rossum is a frequently invited speaker (congresses, (inter)national media, TEDx). In 2019, she published together with colleague Mariette Boon a lay book “FAT, the secret organ” (Dutch: VET belangrijk), which became an international bestseller. This book was awarded the Woman’s Health and Basic Fit Award 2020 in the Netherlands (category experts) and in 2021 the French award of “La Science se livre”, preselected by a jury and chosen by the public. She continues to combine her clinical and scientific roles for better individualized obesity treatments, and she is also committed to nationally and internationally implement better obesity prevention and treatment strategies.

Volkan Demirhan Yumuk (Turkey)

Professor Yumuk graduated from Hacettepe University Medical School in Ankara. In 1994 he was recruited as an endocrinology research fellow at University of Michigan School of Medicine. In 1997 he completed the endocrinology clinical fellowship program at University of Alabama School of Medicine. He became a full professor of medicine in 2006. He is currently a faculty member in the Division of Endocrinology, Metabolism and Diabetes, Istanbul University Cerrahpasa Medical Faculty. Dr. Yumuk’s research area is management of obesity and type 2 diabetes. He has published numerous papers in national and international journals, and authored chapters in books in the field of endocrinology. He is a founding member and current president of the Turkish Association for the Study of Obesity; he is currently the the President Elect and the Vice President responsible for the southern region of the European Association for the Study of Obesity (EASO). He has chaired the 18th European Congress on Obesity in Istanbul in 2011. He is a SCOPE (Specialist Certification of Obesity Professional Education) Fellow and EASO-European Fellow in obesity management. Dr. Yumuk is a member of the expert panel of the European Society of Endocrinology’s Focus Area on Diabetes, Obesity, Metabolism and Nutrition. Dr. Yumuk is an Editorial Board member for Obesity Facts and a reviewer for International Journal of Obesity, Obesity Reasearch and Clinical Practice, Obesity, Obesity Reviews and Obesity Facts.

Gema Fruhbeck Martínez (Spain)

Peter Kühnen (Germany)