Antoni Torres, MD, is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Barcelona. Born in Barcelona in 1954, he is Full Professor of Medicine at the University of Barcelona and Head of the Respiratory Intensive Care Unit at Hospital Clínic Barcelona. He is considered a physician of reference both nationally and internationally in lung infections, including pneumonia, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, bronchiectasis, immunocompromised patients, ventilation weaning, noninvasive ventilation, and acute respiratory distress syndrome. He leads the research group on Applied Research in Respiratory Diseases of the Institut d’Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer (IDIBAPS), from where he facilitates translational research studies. He also coordinates a CIBER group on respiratory diseases (Ciberes) and takes part in several European projects. He is co-author of more than 300 scientific publications, has supervised 24 PhD theses, and his H-Index is 97. Professor Torres has been the recipient of several awards, including the Edward Shanoff award (1988), the Josep Trueta Award (2001), the Fundación de Ciencias de la Salud (2001) award for the 10 best biomedical researchers in the last 4 years, the Lilly Foundation Award (2007) and the Award EUROPE ASPIRE (2011). He was awarded to “the professional excellence in Investigation” of the COMB (College of Physicians), 2013 and received the “ICREA Academia” award from the University of Barcelona (2013). He also holds a Fellowship of the ERS (European Respiratory Society) for the contribution to research in the respiratory field (2014). He is also member of several societies and is the President of the area of tuberculosis and respiratory infections of the Spanish Society of Pneumology and Thoracic Surgery (SEPAR) and President of the area of respiratory infections of the Latin American Thorax Association (ALAT). Catia Cillóniz Campos, PhD, is a Doctor in Medicine at the University of Barcelona. She holds a degree in Biology from the San Luis Gonzaga National University in Peru and has a Masters in Advanced Microbiology and Masters in SIDA from University of Barcelona. She is a researcher within the Applied Research in Respiratory Diseases team, where she coordinates the research line of community-acquired pneumonia (CAP). Her research and clinical interests are in the microbial etiology of CAP, determining the direct or indirect relationship of the different microorganisms with the severity and course of the infection, or describing the course of the different etiologic agents, the type of presentation observed in hospitals and associated comorbidities. She also works on hospital-acquired pneumonia, where she records and monitors the epidemiology, clinical presentation, etiology, and outcome factors of disease. Her research goal is to determine the etiology of CAP, its clinical presentation, severity, resistance, and to contribute to evolving diagnostic tests to identify the etiologic agents with greater accuracy. Dr. Cillóniz has been awarded with the University of Barcelona Extraordinary Doctorate Prize for the academic year 2011/2012. This award recognizes the quality of some of the theses developed and approved at the University of Barcelona which have obtained the Excellent Cum Laude qualification. She has published over 40 articles on CAP in peerreview journals since 2007 and is a member of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID), Spanish Society of Pneumology and Thoracic Surgery (SEPAR), and the European Respiratory Society (ERS).
