HyperChildNET
Aristoltle University Thessaloniki (EL)
WG1 Leader.
Blood pressure measurement DEVICES
University of Milano-Bicocca (IT)
WG2 Leader.
Blood pressure REFERENCE VALUES and definition of blood pressure categories
The Children’s Memorial Health Institute (PL)
WG3 Leader.
IMPACT of high BP on target organ damage in children and adolescents
Jagiellonian University Medical College (PL)
WG4 Leader.
PREVENTION of high BP in children and adolescents
Turkish Society of Hypertension and Atherosclerosis
WG5 Leader.
DISSEMINATION and awareness
Evelina London Childrens Hospital, UK/ Kings College London (UK)
Short Term Scientific Mission Coordinator
University Hospital of Bellvitge-IDIBELL (ES)
Science Communication Manager
Prof. Empar Lurbe
Prof. Empar Lurbe has a degree in Medicine and Surgery from the Faculty of Medicine, University of Valencia, is a specialist in Pediatrics and Nephrology, and was a Hypertension Research Fellow at Northwestern University Medical School, Chicago, Illinois, USA. She is also a Fellow of the Council for High Blood Pressure American Heart Association and head of the CIBER Group in the Physiopathology of Obesity and Nutrition, Institute of Health Carlos III, Madrid. Her current position is Head of Department of Pediatrics, University General Hospital Valencia and full Professor of Pediatrics.
Her research has been focused on the pediatric field with an emphasis on the impact of early life on the development of cardiometabolic risk factors, childhood obesity, and the application of new technologies in pediatric care.
Prof. Lurbe has been Head researcher in several International and National Networks/Projects and was awarded with the Talal Zein Award of the European Society of Hypertension (Milan 2011) distinguishing a scientist originating from a Mediterranean country in recognition of their outstanding work related to the basic science, epidemiology, pathophysiology or therapy of hypertension and other cardiovascular diseases. The Italian Society of Hypertension named her honorary member in 2015, the Spanish Society of Hypertension in 2016 and the Hungarian Society of Hypertension in 2018.
Empar Lurbe is currently the vice president of the European Society of Hypertension (2017- present) and Chair of the Working Group on Hypertension in Children and Adolescents (2015-present) in this Society. Furthermore, she is a member of the Editorial Board of scientific journals in the field of pediatrics, guest editor of Journal of Hypertension and past Editor-in-Chief of Anales de Pediatría, the official journal of the Spanish Association of Pediatrics.
Prof. Elke Wühl
Dr. Elke Wühl is Professor of Pediatrics and a consultant pediatric nephrologist at the Center of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine at Heidelberg University Hospital. She received her doctorate (Dr. med.) at Heidelberg University Medical School and completed her residency and pediatric nephrology training at the University Children’s Hospital Heidelberg. She is a certified pediatric nephrologist and hypertension specialist (DHL).
Dr. Wühl has special interest in progression of chronic kidney disease and is involved in several clinical intervention trials in the pediatric chronic kidney disease population. Her research interests include growth impairment in chronic renal failure, hypertension, cardiovascular complications in chronic kidney disease and renal disease progression.
She has published more than 120 scientific articles and book chapters. With almost 4500 citations her current H-index is 35.
Prof Stella Stabouli (WG1 Leader)
Stella Stabouli is Associate Professor of Pediatrics-Pediatric Nephrology at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. She received her Medical and Doctoral Degree at the National and Kapodestrial University of Athens, and continued her training in Hypertension and Nephrology at the University of Mississippi Medical Centre and the Nephrology Department of Boston Children’s Hospital in USA.
She is Vice-President of the the European Society Hypertension Working Group on Blood Pressure in Children and Adolescents. She is working on the field of pediatric hypertension, obesity, and cardiovascular health in the general pediatric population, as well as pediatric patients with chronic kidney disease and kidney transplantation. Her research activities focus on different blood pressure measurements and their role on the prediction of adverse subclinical outcomes in early childhood and adolescence.
She is a member of the Editorial Board of scientific journals in the field of pediatric nephrology and hypertension and she has authored more than 100 scientific publications with more than 2,500 citations.
Prof Giuseppe Mancia (WG2 Leader)
Professor Emeritus at the University Milano-Bicocca, after 20 years as Chairman of the Division and Department of Internal Medicine at the same University at the San Gerardo Hospital in Monza and Director of the Interuniversity (Universities of Milano, Milano-Bicocca and Pavia) Center for Clinical Physiology and Hypertension.
2001,2003, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2011 and 2013: Chairman of the Scientific and Organizing Committee of ESH meetings, and past President of the ISH, ESH, European Society of Clinical Investigation and Italian Society of Hypertension.
He is currently Chairman of the ESH Foundation and the Hypertension Center, Policlinic of Monza.
Professor Mancia’s research focuses on the epidemiology, pathophysiology, diagnosis and treatment of hypertension, heart failure, coronary and other cardiovascular diseases.
Prof Mieczyslaw Litwin (WG3 Leader)
Currently professor of pediatrics, nephrology and arterial hypertension at The Children’s Memorial Health Institute, Warsaw, Poland.
- 1980-82: medical studies in Medical Academy in Warsaw
- 1987-2000: in Department of Dialysis and Kidney Transplantation
- 1996-1968 – specialization in pediatrics and nephrology
- since 2000 till now: employee of Department of Nephrology, Kidney Transplantation and Arterial Hypertension
- 2002: specialization in arterial hypertension
- 2014: specialization in pediatric nephrology. 1997 – PhD, 2003 – habilitation
His main clinical interest is chronic kidney disease, pathogenesis of arterial hypertension and hypertensive target organ damage.
Prof Dorota Drozdz (WG4 Leader)
Prof Dorota Drozdz is currently an assistant professor and leads the Pediatric Nephrology and Hypertension Department at Jagiellonian University Medical College in Krakow.
Prof. Drozdz has over 25 years of expertise in clinical and experimental research on pediatric kidney diseases and hypertension. She is the Principal Investigator in II and III Phase clinical studies on hypertension and chronic kidney disease.
She coordinates clinical research for the ESCAPE Network (4C, PREDICT), the International Pediatric Peritoneal Dialysis Network (IPPN), the PodoNet Consortium for Clinical, Genetic and Experimental Research into Hereditary Diseases of the Podocyte and ARegPKD/ADPedKD in Krakow.
Prof Serap Erdine (WG5 Leader)
Prof Serap Erdine is a representative of the European Society of Hypertension in UEMS (European Union of Medical Specialists) and EBAC (European Board for Accreditation in Cardiology).
Dr Manish Sinha
Dr Sinha trained as a Pediatric Nephrologist at two of the biggest tertiary centers in the UK including London and Manchester and has been a Consultant since 2005.
He has clinical expertise in the management of children with complex renal diseases including those with chronic kidney disease, dialysis and following kidney transplantation.
He is a recognized expert in the management of childhood hypertension including those without kidney disease and those with complex hypertension.
Dr Sinha has published several studies using non-invasive tools to evaluate arterial stiffening to identify pre-clinical cardiac and vascular changes in children with hypertension and those with kidney disease.
Prof Giacomo Simonetti
Prof. Dr. med. Giacomo Simonetti graduated from the Bern faculty of medicine in 1999. He worked until 2001 as an assistant doctor in the pediatric ward of the Regional Hospital of Bellinzona and Valli. He trained in pediatrics and pediatric nephrology at the University Children’s Hospital of Bern and at the University Children’s Hospital of Heidelberg, Germany.
In 2005 he obtained the title of specialist in pediatrics, and in 2008 the title of subspecialty in pediatric nephrology. In 2009 he obtained a free lecturer at the University of Bern (PD) and in 2012 he was appointed associate professor at the University of Bern. From 2010 until 2014 he was Head of Department of the Pediatric Nephrology Unit of the University Children’s Hospital of Bern.
Currently he is teaching pediatrics at the University of Bern and at the University of Italian Switzerland. He mainly deals with pediatric nephrology and child arterial hypertension.
Prof Fernando Fernandez-Aranda
Specialist in Clinical Psychology, has been the Director of the Eating Disorders (ED) Unit at the Dept. of Psychiatry (University Hospital Bellvitge-HUB/IDIBELL), Head of Group CIBERobn (Excellent Spanish Research Network for Obesity and Nutrition) since 2007, Distinguished Professor since 2020 and Full Professor (2010-20) (School of Medicine, UB), at the same University.
He obtained his PhD in Psychology in 1996 at the University of Hamburg (Germany), his BP in 1990 (Clinical Psychology) at the University of Barcelona. His previous appointments were as a Clinical Psychologist at the Psychiatric University Hospital of Hamburg (1994-1995), long-term predoctoral Research Fellowship in Hannover, Germany (1992-1993) and Consultant Psychologist at the Department of Psychiatry, HUB in Barcelona (1996-03). He was Invited Professor at the University of North Carolina (2005) and at the McGill University in Montreal (2009/15).
Fellow of the AED, Editor in Chief of European Eating Disorders Review (since 2011) and awarded with the Meehan Hartley Award for Public Service and/or Advocacy-2004, leadership Research Award-2015, and Hilde Bruch Lecture Award-2017 (University of Tübingen, Germany). He received several additional awards on development and innovation (Best European Video game for health-2011; Best Spanish Research Ideas-Diario Medico 2011). He has been IP in several International/ EU Grants (13) and in National Grants (20). He published more than 376 English peer-reviewed manuscripts in international journals. He is currently president of the Eating Disorders Research Society (EDRS) and Co-Chair of the ED Section of the World Psychiatric Association (2018-2023).