Dr. Christian Gerges is currently working as a specialist in internal medicine and cardiology at the Department of Internal Medicine II, Division of Cardiology of the Medical University of Vienna. He holds a Ph.D. in Vascular Biology and is an Associate Professor at the Medical University of Vienna. Dr. Gerges has been integral to the development of the balloon pulmonary angioplasty program since 2014. He completed training in balloon pulmonary angioplasty at Okayama Medical Center in Okayama, Japan and a fellowship at the prestigious French Pulmonary Hypertension Reference Center, Hôpital Bicêtre, Paris, France. From 2020 to 2023 he served as a Chairperson of the Working Group on Pulmonary Circulation and Right Ventricular Function of the Austrian Society of Cardiology. His research topics mainly include pulmonary hypertension, pulmonary vascular disease, right ventricular function, hemodynamics, and heart failure.
David Montani, MD, PhD is a Professor at the French National Referral Centre for Pulmonary Hypertension in the Department of Respiratory Medicine headed by Pr Marc Humbert, at the Hôpital Bicêtre, Le Kremlin-Bicêtre, Paris-Saclay University, France. His main research interest is in the field of pulmonary vascular diseases, particularly in the management of pulmonary veno-occlusive disease (PVOD), pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) associated with drug exposure, PAH associated with orphan pulmonary diseases, and genetics (BMPR2, ACVRL1, NF1, TBX4, SOX17) of PAH and PVOD. D. Montani has developed a screening program for pulmonary hypertension in asymptomatic subjects carrying a genetic susceptibility to PAH/PVOD in the French PAH network. He leads the centre of Rare pulmonary diseases (OrphaLung network) in Bicetre Hospital. In addition, Pr. Montani leads a basic research team in the INSERM UMR-S999 laboratory «Pulmonary Hypertension: Pathophysiology and Novel Therapies» (Centre Chirurgical Marie Lannelongue, Le Plessis Robinson), led by Prof. Marc Humbert, his work focusing on the pathophysiology of heritable and drug-induced PAH and PVOD. David Montani has published >400 articles mainly on pulmonary hypertension (genetics, drugs-associated PAH, pulmonary rare diseases, and basic science) and is Editor-in-Chief of Respiratory Medicine and Research (https://www.editorialmanager.com/resmer).
