Prof.Thomas Junghans is a specialist in internal medicine, tropical medicine and infectious diseases, holds a MSc in Public Health in Developing Countries from the University of London and a Diploma in Geosciences. From 1988 to 1997 he worked at the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute. He joined Heidelberg University Hospital in 1997 where he heads the Section Clinical Tropical Medicine at the Centre for Infectious Diseases. The Unit coordinates an interdisciplinary special clinic on echinococcosis since 1999. The main research areas of the Unit are Echinococcosis, Buruli Ulcer and Dengue. He is new Chair of the WHO Informal Working Group on Echinococcosis (WHO-IGWE). This working group has been the principal advisory group to WHO for the control and case detection and management of cystic (CE) and alveolar (AE) echinococcosis.

Dr.Bernadette Abela-Ridder is team leader for neglected zoonotic diseases in the Department for the Control of Neglected Tropical Diseases of the World Health Organization (WHO), with responsibility for rabies control. With degrees and a PhD in veterinary medicine and Tropical Veterinary Medicine she has worked in clinical practice, carried out research in Cameroon and worked on veterinary drug approval for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the US Food and Drug Administration before joining the WHO. Within WHO, she worked in the Department of Food Safety and Zoonoses, leading a capacity building network, the Global Foodborne Infections Network (GFN) and was the WHO focal point for the FAO, OIE, WHO Global Early Warning System for transboundary animal diseases, including zoonoses (GLEWS).

Dr. Carmen-Michaela CRETU is Associate Professor and Chief of Parasitology Department in “C. Davila” University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Bucharest. She is coordinating doctor for French Embassy and French Community in Bucharest. Her research and clinical expertise includes clinical parasitology, tropical medicine and travel medicine and ultrasonography. She is President of the Romanian Association of Hydatidology (founding member), Vice President of the Romanian Society of Parasitology (founding member) and member of Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, International Society of Travel Medicine, European Federation of Societies for Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology, International Commission on Trichinelosis, International Association on Hydatidology, steering committee WHO Collaborating Centre for the Prevention and the Treatment of Human Echinococcosis (invited as expert: Pavia, 2003; Besançon, 2007), Balkan Medical Union, South-Eastern and Eastern European Society of Parasitology (SEEEPS) (founding member, Responsable for Clinical Parasitology Group). She involved in some National and International Research Projects and published papers in National and International journals. Dr. Carmen-Michaela CRETU has been Invited speaker to national and international meetings: ie European Conference of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (Barcelona, 2008; Milan, 2011). She published 9 books in Parasitology and Tropical Medicine.

He is Principal Professor, School of Veterinary Medicine Epidemiology Laboratory Director of the Graduate Office Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos Lima, Peru. He was graduated from Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Veterinary Faculty, Lima, Peru. He has been working in Public Health since 1992 when he was doing field epidemiology and was responsible for pig sampling in a Taenia solium/cysticercosis project in the Peruvian Highlands. He decided to advocate his time and effort to work with zoonotic parasites in order to understand their transmission, risk factors, treatment and the development of control strategies. He worked both in the field and in animal models in their Animal Facilities in the Veterinary School. He has had the opportunity to work with other parasites such as Echinococcus granulosus, Cryptosporidium, Cyclospora, and Trypanosoma cruzi. Currently, he has been spending most of his time to investigate in Echinococcus granulosus / Cystic Echinococcosis during the last 15 years; he has published research related to field epidemiology, clinical trials in animals looking for novel treatment strategies, serological diagnosis, and evaluating control strategies.

Peter Deplazes is full Professor and Director of the Institute of Parasitology of the Medical and Vetsuisse-Faculty, University of Zurich (Switzerland). He graduated from the University of Zurich in 1984 where he also performed his doctoral thesis. From 1988 to 1990 he was assistant and 1992 he became head of the laboratory for Zoonoses at the Institute of Parasitology, University of Zurich. In 1991, he was a guest scientist at the Institute for Molecular Genetics and Animal Disease, School of Veterinary Studies, Murdoch (Western Australia). His main research focuses on the biology, epidemiology, diagnosis and control of zoonotic parasites, such as Cryptosporidium, Taenia, Echinococcus, and Toxocara, and on opportunistic parasites in immune-deficient patients. He is a founding member of the European Veterinary Parasitology College (EVPC) and of ESCCAP and he is member of several professional organizations as well as several advisory boards of a number of foundations aiming to improve parasitology. He is co-author of more than 200 peer-reviewed papers and was invited speaker at many conferences and symposiums.

Prof. Patrick Giraudoux is an ecologist who has been working on alveolar echinococcosis since the late 80s. His research focuses on wildlife and landscape ecology, and ecosystem health. It aims at understanding how and on which scales, the spatial structure of ecological systems drives the population dynamics of small mammals, their predators, pathogens and toxicant transfers, and their impacts on socio-ecosystems. He has been developing research in ecohealth on the multi-scale analysis of the effects of regional ecosystem disturbance, with implications in agriculture, health (research programs on Echinococcosis in Europe and Asia), conservation and the management of wildlife – human conflicts. He is honorary member of the Institut Universitaire de France, one of the founders of the research lab UMR 6249 CNRS Chrono-environment (https://chrono-environnement.univ-fcomte.fr) in 2008, of the LTER Zone atelier Arc jurassien (http://zaaj.univ-fcomte.fr) in 2013, and he coordinates the CNRS international network “Ecosystem health and environmental disease ecology” (http://gdri-ehede.univ-fcomte.fr) since 2013. He is the foreign director of the “Wildlife Management and Ecosystem Health” research lab he founded at the Yunnan University of Finance and Economics, China, in 2012, and a member of the board of the WHO collaborating centre for the prevention and treatment of human echinococcoses in Besançon, France, since 1995.

Marianna Karamanou is a Dermatologist-Venereologist, Associate Professor of History of Medicine and elected Head of the Laboratory of History of Medicine and Medical Deontology in the Medical School, University of Crete, Greece. She is a research fellow in the Institute of Medical Humanities, Medical School, Lausanne, Switzerland. She is currently President of the Hellenic Department of Balkan Medical Union. Her research work covers the whole spectrum of history of medicine and all time periods with a special research focus on history of medicine of 18th, 19th and 20th century. She has more than 200 publications in international journals and her research has received several national and international distinctions.

Dr. Adriano Casulli, PhD, is the head of the “WHO Collaborating Centre for the Epidemiology, Detection and Control of Cystic and Alveolar Echinococcosis (in animals and humans)” and member of the “European Union Reference Laboratory for Parasites” in Rome (Department of Infectious Diseases, Italian Institute of Health). He has long-standing experience in International Public Health research on zoonotic cestodes with special focus on molecular/clinical epidemiology, drugs, and biomarker discovery on cystic and alveolar echinococcosis. He is co-author of more than 80 scientific publications, is a reviewer for 25 international peer-reviewed journals and a member of the Editorial board of 3 journals, including Deputy Editor of “PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases”. He is also consultant for EFSA and ECDC on parasites. He is the Project Coordinator of several international granted collaborative projects.