Julien Mazières is a pulmonologist (primary specialization) and an oncologist (secondary specialization), leading the Pulmonary Medicine department at Toulouse University Hospital in France. He also leads the Thoracic Oncology program at Toulouse Cancer Institute (IUCT). He is a researcher at Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM) in the Oncology Research Center of Toulouse (CRCT, UMR1037).

Professor Mazières received his medical degree in Toulouse and completed specialty training in pulmonology and oncology at the University of Toulouse, where he also earned a master’s degree in molecular and cellular biology, and a doctoral degree at Paul Sabatier University, also in Toulouse. He has worked as a research fellow in the thoracic oncology lab in San Francisco (UCSF).

He is currently the head of the Pulmonology Department at Toulouse Cancer Hospital and the coordinator of the Oncology Federation in this hospital. His main research interests are early diagnosis, targeted therapies, immunotherapy, and multimodal treatment for lung cancer, mesothelioma, and thymoma. He is also involved in translational research related to lung cancer in women and in prognostic and predictive biomarkers. In his research for INSERM, Professor Mazières is working on fundamental cancer research with a special focus on RhoGTPAses, tumor invasion, liquid biopsy, and resistance to targeted therapy in the field of lung cancer.

His work has been published in more than 250 peer-reviewed publications including The Lancet, The New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet Oncology, the Journal of Clinical Oncology, and Cancer Research. He has been recognized as being in the top 1% of the highly cited researchers in 2021 on the Clarivate list.  

Florian Peter Länger has been an Attending Pathologist at Institute for Pathology at the Medical University in Hannover, Germany, since 2001. He is a reference pathologist for the German Breast Cancer Screening Program and the German Network of children's Interstitial Lung Disease (chILD). Dr. Länger is a member of the German Society of Pathology, German Society of Pulmonology, German Society of Hematology and Oncology, European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO), and American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). He is also a Board Member of the Thoracic Pathology Working Group of the German Society of Pathology and a member of the German Bone Tumor Working Group. Dr Länger is an Associate Editor for the Frontiers in Medicine journal and a reviewer for Annals Hematology, Virchows Archive, and Frontiers in Medicine. He has also published over 15 articles in scientific journals

Natasha Leighl leads the Thoracic Medical Oncology Group at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, and is Professor in the Department of Medicine, and Adjunct Professor in the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto. Dr Leighl holds the OSI Pharmaceuticals Foundation Chair in Cancer New Drug Development through the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation. She has published over 350 peer-reviewed papers, has held (as principal or co-investigator) over $800 million in peer-reviewed grant funding. She has mentored many trainees that have gone on to leadership roles in oncology around the world and received the American Society of Clinical Oncology Excellence in Teaching Award in 2019.  

Dr. Leighl’s main interest is in developing new treatments in lung cancer and improving lung cancer diagnostics including liquid biopsy. She is involved in clinical studies of novel agents for the treatment of thoracic cancers, has led several international and cooperative group studies in lung cancer, and has served as a member of the Lung Disease Site Group Executive of the Canadian Cancer Clinical Trials Group (CCTG). Dr Leighl was Co-Chair of the CCTG Committee on Economic Analysis, Congress Co-President of the 2018 World Conference in Lung Cancer, and serves on multiple committees including the ASCO Thoracic Guidelines Advisory Group. She is also co-section editor of The Oncologist and Current Oncology, an editorial board member of the Journal of Thoracic Oncology, British Journal of Cancer, a member of the IASLC Quality and Value Committee, on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Lung Cancer Foundation of America, and was recently elected to the Board of Directors of the Americas Health Foundation. Previously, Dr. Leighl has served as Web Editor of the Journal of Thoracic Oncology, on the editorial board of the Journal of Clinical Oncology, on the Royal College of Physicians & Surgeons of Canada Medical Oncology Examination Board, and she is Past-President of Lung Cancer Canada.

Johan Vansteenkiste is a Professor of Internal Medicine in the Faculty of Medicine at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, and Head of Clinic in the Respiratory Oncology Unit and its Clinical Trial Unit at the Leuven University Hospital.

Professor Vansteenkiste studied Medicine at the University of Leuven before becoming a board-certified pulmonologist-oncologist. He had additional training in respiratory oncology at the European School of Oncology in Milan, Italy, and in respiratory endoscopy at the Laser Centre in Marseille, France, before gaining his PhD at the University of Leuven in 1996.

Professor Vansteenkiste is an active member of several international societies, including ESMO, IASLC, ASCO, and ERS. He was Secretary of the Thoracic Oncology Assembly of the ERS and member of the ERS School Board during 2009 – 2012. He was also on the Board of Directors of IASLC in 2009 – 2013. He is a renewed member of the ESMO Lung Educational Group and Guidelines Group for 2021 – 2025, and has chaired one of the ESMO European Lung Cancer Conferences.

He is principal investigator / co-investigator in several clinical trials in the area of lung cancer. Professor Vansteenkiste is also Associate Editor at Annals of Oncology, member of the editorial board of other journals, and author / co-author of more than 350 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters on respiratory oncology. His current Web of Science H-index is 75, and he was awarded the Highly Cited Researcher Award by Web of Science in 2020 and 2021. He was also the recipient of the 2021 ESMO/IASLC Heine H. Hansen Award for outstanding contributions to education and research in lung cancer.