Bio
Dr. Casiraghi is the Deputy Director of the Division of Thoracic Surgery at the European Institute of Oncology in Milan and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Oncology and Hemato-oncology at the University of Milan, Italy. Since 2008, she has worked at the European Institute of Oncology in Milan where she became an expert in thoracic oncology (lung cancer, mediastinal tumors, and mesothelioma) and minimally invasive techniques such as robotic surgery. She obtained National Scientific Qualification as an Associate Professor of Thoracic Surgery in 2017 (from 3.3.2017 to 3.3.2027) and completed her PhD at Alma Mater Studiorum—University of Bologna in March 2021. She became an Assistant Professor of the Department of Oncology and Hemato-oncology at the University of Milan in 2021. She is the PI/co-PI of different projects both for lung cancer treatment and thymoma and has recently focused her research on microbiome characterization both for the early detection of lung cancer and for more advanced-stage NSCLC treated with immunotherapy. She is the first author and co-author of many papers in peer-reviewed publications and journals, and she has presented her findings at different national and international scientific and surgical conferences. Dr. Casiraghi is an editor and reviewer of international peer-reviewed journals and a member of the European Society of Thoracic Surgery (ESTS), the European Association of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery (EACTS), the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC), Società Italiana di Chirurgia Toracica (SICT), and Società Italiana di Endoscopia Toracica (SIET). She is now a board member of the Thoracic Domain of the EACTS (from October 2023 to October 2026) and the chair of the Surgical Oncology task force of the EACTS.

Bio
Dr Luca Bertolaccini, M.D., Ph.D., FCCP, is a thoracic surgeon in the Division of Thoracic Surgery, IEO European Institute of Oncology IRCCS, Milan (IT). He is an Associate Editor (Thoracic) of the European Journal of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery and an Editor of the Statistic Corner Column of the Journal of Thoracic Disease. He was the former Associate Editor (Thoracic) of Interactive Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery. He also serves on several editorial boards and is a reviewer for many scientific journals. He is a member of the European Association of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery, the European Society of Thoracic Surgeons, the European Respiratory Society, the Royal Society of Statistics, the International Society for Clinical Biostatistics, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Physical Society, and the Scandinavian Society for Research in Cardiothoracic Surgery. His primary clinical interests include lung cancer surgery, minimally invasive thoracic surgery, and thoracic oncology. His research interests and leading publications focus on lung cancer surgery and biostatistics.

Bio
Paul Van Schil was born on July 7 1957 in Antwerp, Belgium. He graduated from medical school with outstanding honors in 1982 at Antwerp University in Belgium. After completing his training in general surgery, he became a fellow in the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery at the Antonius Hospital, Nieuwegein, the Netherlands. His doctoral thesis was entitled “Bronchial sleeve resection for lung cancer: long-term results” (University of Nijmegen, the Netherlands, 1992). In 1990, he became a staff member at the Department of Surgery of Antwerp University Hospital. He was the chair of the Department of Thoracic and Vascular Surgery from 2000 to 2019. Currently, he is a professor emeritus in thoracic and vascular surgery at the Faculty of Medicine and a consultant in the Department of Thoracic and Vascular Surgery of the Antwerp University Hospital. From October 2013 to October 2014, he was the president of the European Association for Cardio-thoracic Surgery (EACTS). In 2017, he became a member of the Board of Directors of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) and chair of the lung cancer domain of its Staging and Prognostic Factors Committee (SPFC). In September 2021, he was appointed president-elect of the IASLC, and in September 2023, he became president of this global organization. Currently, he is an associate editor of the Journal of Thoracic Oncology, Pulmonology, and Acta Chirurgica Belgica. His main interests are thoracic and vascular surgery with a special emphasis on lung cancer staging and therapy, lung metastases, thymoma, and mesothelioma.

Bio
Dr. Ibrahim is a Thoracic Surgeon, Professor of Thoracic Surgery, and Director of the Thoracic Reconstructive Program at Sant ’Andrea Hospital, University of Rome “Sapienza”, Italy. He also works as an Instructor of Surgery at Washington University in St. Louis, USA Dr. Ibrahim’s extensive surgical experience is focused on lung transplantation, tracheo-bronchial, pulmonary artery, and vena cava reconstruction, mediastinal tumors, video-assisted thoracoscopy, robotic surgery, multimodality therapy for advanced lung cancer, and chest wall surgery. He graduated from the University of Rome “Sapienza” in 1999 and completed the residency program of Thoracic Surgery in 2004 in the Division of Thoracic Surgery of Umberto I University Hospital. He moved to Sant’Andrea Hospital—University “La Sapienza” and accomplished his PhD in Thoracic Surgery in 2009. He obtained, in 2010, the Evarts A. Graham Memorial Fellowship Award from the American Association for Thoracic Surgery. This gave him the opportunity to travel and visit the most important Thoracic Surgery centers in the USA and Canada (St. Louis, Boston, and Toronto). He completed his education with a research fellowship at the Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine in the Laboratory of Immunology where he held the title of Staff Scientist. At Washington University in St. Louis, he was also trained in the immunological and physiological methods required to evaluate innate immune responses and lung graft injury. Prof. Dr. Ibrahim also serves as an Assistant Editor at the European Journal for Cardiothoracic Surgery; he is an active member of the Board and an examiner for the European Board for Cardiothoracic Surgery. He is the Chair of the Airway Task Force for the European Association for Cardiothoracic Surgery (EACTS). Dr. Ibrahim also serves as President-Elect for the Italian Society for Thoracic Endoscopy. For further details: https://www.ctsnet.org/home/mmibrahim

Bio
Prof. Dr. Isabelle Opitz is Director of the Department of Thoracic Surgery of University Hospital Zurich, Chair of the Lung Cancer Center Zurich, and Professor for Thoracic Surgery of the University of Zurich, Switzerland. She is a Past President and current director of the board of ESTS, International Director of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery, Board Member of the European Society of Thoracic Surgeons, Board Member of the International Mesothelioma Interest Group, and Associate Editor of the JTCVS. She is the Thoracic Surgery Representative for the Lung Cancer Core Group of the Swiss Association for Clinical Cancer Research (SAKK). Prof. Dr. Isabelle Opitz is one of the Chairs of the World Conference on Lung Cancer 2025 in Barcelona and a Member of the Scientific Committee for the Annual Meeting of the European Society for Medical Oncology 2025, the European Lung Cancer Conference 2025, and the Annual Meeting of the European Society of Thoracic Surgeons 2025. To date, Prof. Dr. Isabelle Opitz has published more than 240 articles, including 155 original articles, multiple reviews, and book chapters. She has received several national and international awards for her research and has acquired more than EUR 13 million in grants for her own research. Her research mainly focuses on robotic surgery and the advanced surgical treatment of pulmonary oncology, malignant pleural mesothelioma, chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension, and non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).