K onstantinos E. Farsalinos, M.D., is a research fellow at the Onassis Cardiac Surgery Center in Athens-Greece, at the Department of Pharmacy, University of Patras-Greece and at the National School of Public Health-Greece. He has been conducting laboratory and clinical research on e-cigarettes as a principal investigator since 2011. Examples of his work include the first study on the cytotoxic effects of e-cigarette vapor on cultured cells and the immediate effects of e-cigarette use on cardiac function and coronary circulation. He ran a worldwide online survey of almost 20,000 vapers (users of e-cigarettes) identifying patterns of use and experience with e-cigarettes among consumers, published in 2014. He has analysed patterns of e-cigarette use based on large European and US population surveys (Eurobarometer, National Youth Tobacco Survey). Additionally, he is performing research work on heated tobacco products. His research findings have been presented in major international scientific congresses and his studies were used in preparing the regulatory framework on e-cigarettes by the European Union. As of early 2018, he has published more than 60 studies and articles in international peer-reviewed scientific journals about smoking, Tobacco Harm Reduction, and e-cigarettes. He was the handling editor and author of the book titled “Analytical assessment of e-cigarettes”, published by Elsevier in 2017.

P rofessor Riccardo Polosa is Director of the Institute for Internal and Emergency Medicine of the University of Catania in Italy.  He is also in charge of the University’s Centre for Tobacco Research (CPCT), and Honorary Professor of Medicine at Southampton University (UK).  He is author of more than 250 peer reviewed articles and books mainly covering repiratory medicine, clinical immunology, and tobacco addiction.  Professor Polosa and his research team have lead several clinical trials on e-cigarettes. On top of his academic work, he serves also as Chief Scientific Advisor for Lega Italiana Anti Fumo (LIAF), the Italian Anti-Smoking League.

P rofessor Bernd M. Mayer studied Chemistry and Physics at Graz University . After completing his Doctoral Thesis at the Children’s Hospital University under the supervision of Hermann Esterbauer at the Institute of Biochemistry in 1983, he became a Ph.D. He then worked until 1987 as a university assistant at the Institute of Pharmacodynamics and Toxicology . From 1988 to 1991, Mayer was a scholarship holder of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and a research assistant at the Institute of Pharmacology of the Free University of Berlin with Eycke Böhme and Günter Schultz. After returning to Graz in 1991, he habilitated in Biochemical Pharmacology. From 1991 to 1998 he was associate professor at the Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology, from 1997 to 2004 also Institute Director. In 1999, he was appointed Full Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology. From 1998 to 2002, Mayer headed the Austrian Society for Molecular Biosciences and Biotechnology. From 2003 to 2012 Mayer was a member of the Board of Trustees in the Biomed department of the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) . Since 2004, he has been in charge of pharmacology and toxicology at the newly founded Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences in Graz.

P rofessor Gerry Stimson is a public health social scientist, with over 40 years’ experience of research and advocacy. He was one of the founders of drugs harm reduction in the 1980s and helped develop and evaluate harm reduction in the UK as a response to HIV/AIDS. He has advised the UK Government, World Health Organization, UNAIDS, UNODC, World Bank and numerous governments on issues related to drugs, HIV infections, AIDS, and alcohol. He advocates for Tobacco Harm Reduction as a key public health strategy for reducing smoking related harms. He was a member of the UK National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence guidelines group on Tobacco Harm Reduction, and is a member of the British Standards Institute working group on e-cigarette standards. He helps organise the Global Forum on Nicotine conference. He has published over 220 scientific publications and several books. He is Honorary Professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Emeritus Professor at the Imperial College of London, and recent past Editor of the International Journal of Drug Policy. He was Executive Director of the International Harm Reduction Association from 2004 to 2010.

L inda Bauld is Professor of Health Policy, Director of the Institute for Social Marketing and Dean of Research (Impact) at the University of Stirling. She is also Deputy Director of the UK Centre for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies, a UKCRC Centre for Public Health Excellence covering 13 Universities. Since August 2014 she has also held the post of Cancer Research UK’s cancer prevention champion (the CRUK/BUPA Chair in Behavioural Research for Cancer Prevention). This involves a part-time secondment to CRUK – the world’s largest independent cancer charity – to lead their cancer prevention initiative.

Linda is a behavioural scientist with a PhD in social policy. Her research focuses on two main areas: the evaluation of complex public health interventions; and the use of evidence to inform health policy. She has conducted studies on drug and alcohol use, inequalities in health and, most notably, on smoking cessation and tobacco control. She undertook the first study of the UK’s national (NHS) stop smoking services when they were established in 1999. She has also played a significant role in the monitoring and evaluation of a range of tobacco control policies, and served as the UK government’s scientific adviser on tobacco control from 2006 to 2010. Examples of recent work include: authoring the 3 year review of smokefree legislation in England (published by the Department of Health in 2011); playing a key role in developing smoking cessation in pregnancy guidance in England (2010) and for the World Health Organization (2013-14); coordinating the development of an independent alcohol strategy for the UK (‘Health First’, published in March 2013); leading a national review of smoking cessation services for the Scottish government (2013-2014); chairing the NICE programme development group on Tobacco Harm Reduction (2011-2013), and acting as spokesperson for CRUK’s obesity policy work in Scotland through the charity’s ‘Scale Down Cancer’ campaign. She chairs, or is a member of, a significant number of policy and research funding committees in Europe, England and Scotland. Her work with the media is extensive, and a particular current focus is contributing to the ongoing debate on electronic cigarettes and Tobacco Harm Reduction. In 2017 she was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh for her contribution to cancer prevention and public health.

D r Attila Danko is an experienced and busy General Practitioner in Ballarat, a regional city in Australia. Over the last few years, several of his patients have surprised him by being able to give up smoking using electronic cigarettes when all other methods had failed. Inspired by the potential revolution in smoking cessation this represents, and appalled by the prohibitionist policies of his country, he began to advocate for the liberalisation of laws in Australia that effectively ban nicotine containing electronic cigarettes. Dr Attila Danko along with other citizen advocates, runs the New Nicotine Alliance Australia and has been campaigning for the last few years to make low risk recreational nicotine products legal and accessible.

M iguel de la Guardia (1953, Tetuán) has a degree in Chemistry (1976) and a PhD in Chemistry (1979) from the Universitat de València. To date, he has published more than 400 papers in the area of ​​Analytical Chemistry, of which 338 are referenced by the ISI Web of Science, and he has received 3,610 citations. His index H is 28 and he´s  responsible or co-responsible, of conducting, of 29 doctoral theses directed.

He began his work in the area of ​​Atomic Spectrometry and from there he went on to Molecular Spectrometry and Chromatography. His best contributions were in the field of sample preparation (digestion and microwave assisted extraction), non-chromatographic speciation and automation (FIA and switching). He is particularly proud of having developed the technique of quantitative IR analysis in the vapor phase and of proposing in 1995 the concept of environmentally sustainable methods of analysis, incorporating a detoxification or on-line waste recycling stage into mechanized methods.

He has given guest lectures at numerous Spanish universities, as well as in France, Germany, Italy, Brazil, Venezuela, Morocco, Turkey, China, Norway, United Kingdom, USA, Colombia, Egypt, Uruguay, Argentina, Switzerland and Belgium.

He has received in his laboratory researchers from Brazil, India, China, Venezuela, Italy, France, Germany, Austria, Morocco, Algeria, Iran, Iraq and Egypt.

T rained neuroscientist in Paris (PhD in 1988) who spent 2 years as a postdoctoral fellow in Clinical Pharmacology & Experimental Therapeutics at the University of California. After 6 years of research in La Salpêtrière Hospital (Paris), and teaching at Paris V and Paris VII Universities, he became a freelance consultant for the pharmaceutical industry and the public sector (training smoking cessation specialists, and writing monthly scientific digests for them). He is a Charter Member of SRNT and was part of the core group who founded SRNT Europe. He participated in the Steering Committee of the WHO Europe Partnership Project to reduce Tobacco Dependence (1991-2001), and was also on the European Commission’s Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks (SCHENIR) expert group on smokeless tobacco (2006-2008). He is also Honorary Lecturer of the UK Centre for Tobacco Control Studies, the University of Nottingham, England, and manager of www.treatobacco.net the SRNT & SSA website dedicated to tobacco dependence treatment.

P rofessor Marewa Glover has worked on reducing smoking-related harm for over 25 years. She has worked as a policy analyst, as coordinator of a national tobacco control programme, as cessation trainer and, for over 17 years, as a researcher. She has chaired numerous committees and organisations including End Smoking NZ, an independent NGO that lobbied for a harm reduction approach even before electronic cigarettes were introduced. Marewa has over 100 publications reflecting her leadership and support of numerous studies. Her primary focus has been reducing smoking during pregnancy and reducing smoking among Māori, the indigenous people of New Zealand. She has also been a co-investigator on a number of innovative cessation projects and a longitudinal online survey of New Zealand vapers. Dr Glover is the most prominent public commentator on vaping in NZ. Despite an initial ban on the import and sale of nicotine for vaping imposed by the Ministry of Health, vaping has become established as a common and successful way to reduce or stop smoking in NZ. Marewa, along with a small number of other researchers who early on foresaw the potential of e-cigarettes, have helped make this happen.

L ouise Ross was the leader of the Leicester City Stop Smoking Service. Louise finished a very happy and long working life in learning disabilities to work in tobacco control and smoking cessation, and has been delighted to discover a second career that has been even more satisfying than the first. Initially sceptical about ecigs, she has become a vocal advocate for their use as a harm reduction method, principally because she has listened to people who have used them to stop smoking, and has been utterly convinced by their sincerity. Louise is an associate of the New Nicotine Alliance UK, a charity committed to improving public health through a greater understanding of risk-reduced nicotine products. Louise now does freelance and unpaid advocacy work about stopping smoking and vaping.

Á ngeles Muntadas-Prim was born in Barcelona. She chairs the Spanish Association Supporting Vapers (ANESVAP)  in Spain, actually the only association in the country defending vapers’ rights. ANESVAP was officially created in 2014 after a lipoid pneumonia scandal in Spain on March 13th of 2014, which caused a tremendous outrage among many vapers plus the abusive manipulation of that news and its devastating effects on the number of vapers and stores in Spain. Another reason was the upcoming TPD which would be bringing many problems dealing with its transposition by the Spanish Government. Since then, ANESVAP has been advocating for Tobacco Harm Reduction meeting various politicians, doctors, medical associations, media, as well as assisting to events such as the ICO-WHO Symposia, the GFN in Warsaw, the European Parliament, and Political Campaigns around the country.

She’s also member of the Governing Board of the International Network of Nicotine Consumer Organisations (INNCO), being also in charge of the associations in South America.

She has a background in different matters in Art with a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Arts from Barcelona University, a Master Degree in Pigmented Ceramics in China and the Islamic World, and a Degree in English Language.

Her main objective is to achieve that health authorities introduce harm reduction policies in tobacco control, as harm reduction is a human right, by battling for the freedom of choice of those people who fight for their health and/or their different ways of enjoying their own lives.

Á ngel González Ureña holds a Degree in Chemistry from the University of Granada (1968) and a PhD in  Chemistry from the Complutense University of Madrid. He joined the group of Prof. RB Bernstein as a postdoctoral fellow in Madison (Wisconsin University) and as a research associate in the University of Austin (Texas). He´s well known for his original contributions in the molecular dynamics of chemical reactions using laser spectroscopy and molecular beams. His scientific activity covered studies on laser applications in Analytical Chemistry, Medicine, Environment, Agriculture and Biology, developing up to thirteen patents. He has published around 290 articles, with 48 years of teaching activity in the Complutense, he has supervised 18 doctoral theses and has written five textbooks. Dr. González Ureña is or has been a member of the AIP, AAAS, SPIE, RSEF, RSEQ, Royal Society (Division of Molecular Beam), New York Academy of Sciences, Division of Atomic and Molecular Physics of EPS. Member of the Spanish Chapter of the Club of Rome. Vice President of the specialized group of Molecular Atomic Physics. Scientific Censor of the DGICYT, MINECO, ANEP, NATO and the EU. Spanish representative in the gas surface dynamic group of the European Science Foundation. Referee of the journals JCP, JPC, JPCA, PCCP, CPL, JMS, EPJD and J. Agric. Food Chemistry to cite some examples. He has also served as a member of the Editorial Board of Chemical Physics Letters (1991-2009) and has been Associate Editor EPJD (2004-2010). He is founder of the Multidisciplinary Institute of the Complutense University of Madrid, of which he was its first director until 2002. Currently and since 1992, he is the Director of the Department of Lasers and Molecular Beams of the aforementioned Institute.

C armen Escrig is the International Coordinator of MOVE (Medical Organization supporting Vaping and Electronic Cigarettes) since its creation. PhD in Cell Biology and Genetics from the Autonomous University of Madrid, she has developed her research work at the National Institute of Agricultural and Food Research and Technology (INIA), the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Maryland and the Autonomous University of Madrid, participating in several research projects in virology, microbiology and molecular biology. As a pro-vaping activist, she is the scientific advisor of various associations related to e-cigarettes, attended several symposiums and congresses such as the ICO-WHO Symposia on Tobacco Control or the e-Cigarette SUMMIT held at the Royal Society of London. She has also collaborated as a speaker at the Global Forum on Nicotine being held in Warsaw for the last five years. She’s currently the scientific advisor and / or founding member of the EFVI Spain Platform (European Initiative for Free Vaping) and the associations ANESVAP (Spanish Association Supporting Vapers), UPEV (Association of Vaping Promoters and Entrepreneurs), INNCO (International Network of Nicotine Consumer Organisations) and AHL-Provape (Hispanic-Latin American Pro Vaping Alliance). At the same time, she is the International Coordinator of the MOVE initiative (Medical Organization supporting Vaping and Electronic Cigarettes) and co-author of its Manifesto, publicly promoting and standing for a strictly scientific approach to the legislative challenges that the electronic cigarette will face in the next years in all countries. In relation to MOVE, she has written dozens of articles for different associations, the media as well as scientific publications. She too has collaborated and given advise on different research projects regarding electronic cigarettes.