Scientific Advisors

Toby Maher is a Professor of Medicine and Director of Interstitial Lung Disease at Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles (USC).  Dr Maher has spent the last 18 years specializing in the management of all forms of pulmonary fibrosis and orphan interstitial lung diseases (ILD). He previously ran the ILD unit at Royal Brompton Hospital. Since June 2020 he has been Director of ILD at Keck Medicine of USC. He remains Professor of Interstitial Lung Disease at Imperial College London and is British Lung Foundation Professor of Respiratory Medicine.

Marlies Wijsenbeek is pulmonary physician and Professor of Interstitial Lung Diseases at the Erasmus University Medical Centre in Rotterdam, a national expert centre for interstitial lung diseases (ILD) in the Netherlands and member of the European Reference Network for Rare Lung Diseases (ERN-Lung). She is head of the Erasmus MC multidisciplinary ILD centre. Her research interests include e-health, patient centred outcome measures in ILD, cough in ILD and new therapies in ILD and sarcoidosis.

Prof. Wijsenbeek is chair of group 12.01 (Idiopathic Interstitial Pneumonia) of the European Respiratory Society and chair of the functional committee for continued education of the ERN-Lung.

Dr. Fernando Martinez is Chief of the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College. Prior to this appointment, he was professor of internal medicine and associate chief for clinical research in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at the University of Michigan Health System, Ann Arbor, Michigan, as well as medical director of its Pulmonary Diagnostic Services and co-medical director of the Lung Transplantation Program. After graduating from the University of Florida School of Medicine in Gainesville, Florida, he completed a residency in internal medicine at Beth Israel Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, and a fellowship in pulmonary medicine at the Boston University Pulmonary Center. He received a Master’s in Biostatistics and Clinical Study Design from the University of Michigan School of Public Health. Dr. Martinez has long standing expertise in interstitial lung disease biology, defining various phenotypes of IPF progression, and the design and conduct of multicenter Phase II and III clinical trials.

Tamera Corte, BSc (Med), MBBS, FRACP, PhD, is Director of Interstitial Lung Disease at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, and Clinical Professor at the University of Sydney. She leads the Centre of Research Excellence for Pulmonary Fibrosis, which strives to improve and extend the lives of patients living with pulmonary fibrosis through the development of a comprehensive and integrated program of basic and clinical research and education across Australia.  She is the founding Chair of the Steering Committee for the Australian Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis Registry, the Australasian Interstitial Lung Disease Registry and leads the clinical and translational Pulmonary Fibrosis research group at the University of Sydney.

Kevin R. Flaherty is a Professor of Medicine in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  Dr. Flaherty is the director of the Interstitial Lung Disease program, serves as Vice-Chair of the Medical School Institutional Review Board for Human Subjects Research and is the steering committee chair for the pulmonary fibrosis foundation’s Patient Registry.  His clinical and research interests center around the diagnosis, monitoring, and care of patients with interstitial lung diseases.  He is an active participant on grants and clinical trials related to the study and treatment of patients with idiopathic interstitial pneumonias, particularly idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.

Yoshikazu Inoue, M.D., Ph.D. is an Executive Director, Clinical Research Center, National Hospital Organization Kinki-Chuo Chest Medical Center, Osaka, Japan, and an Invited Professor, Infection, Immunology and Oncology Cooperating Course, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University.

Dr Inoue is a world-wide well known specialist of Interstitial lung diseases and Rare Lung Diseases such as pulmonary alveolar proteinosis, and . He studies pulmonary medicine in Ehime University, School of Medicine (Ehime, Japan), and University of Colorado, Health Science Center, National Jewish Center for Immunology and Respiratory Medicine, Occupational and Environmental Section, Pulmonary Division (Denver, Colorado, USA), He started to work in National Kinki-Chuo Hospital for Chest Diseases (currently National Hospital Organization Kinki-Chuo Chest Medical Center), Osaka, Japan from 1997.

He has been involved in many international and domestic clinical trials of chronic fibrosing ILDs including IPF, and rare lung diseases, and in many clinical, basic, and epidemiological study projects as board members. He also has been committee members of international and domestic official guidelines and statements. He has been serving as advisory members of several patients’ advocacy group of ILDs and Rare Lung Diseases in Japan and USA.

Dr. Tejaswini Kulkarni is an Associate Professor in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Dr. Kulkarni is Director of the Interstitial Lung Disease Program and serves as Associate Medical Director of the Lung Health Center. She is a clinician-scientist whose work focuses on improving outcomes for patients with pulmonary fibrosis through clinical trials, biomarker research, and advanced imaging. She is actively involved in national efforts to advance ILD care and research through leadership roles at CHEST and Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation.