Archives: Faculty

Dr Patrick Perier obtained his medical degree at the Paris V University in France. In 1982, he started his senior residency in the department of Professor Alain Carpentier at the Broussais Hospital where he became a staff member. In 1990, he joined the team of the Herz und Gefäss Klink (Bad Neustadt/Saale) in Germany to develop mitral valve surgery and started the development of the ‘Mitral Group’. Over the last 15 years, he has refined the techniques of minimally invasive mitral valve repair.

I have been a Consultant Thoracic Surgeon since 1997 initially at University Hospital of Leicester for 20 years and at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London since 2017 where I lead the mesothelioma and emphysema services. I have published over 300 papers (including 20 on lung volume reduction) and book chapters with an H-index of 58. I have been a steering committee member of many randomized surgical trials : Big Lung Trial, MesoVATS, MARS, MARS2 and most recently the CELEB trial of lung volume reduction. I have co-authored many management guidelines on lung cancer (BTS, ESMO, ESTS), mesothelioma (ERS/ESTS) and pneumothorax (ERS). I have served as a Councillor of the European Society of Thoracic Surgeons, the British Thoracic Oncology Group; on the Executive Committee of the Society for Cardiothoracic Surgery in Great Britain and the Specialist Advisory Committee for Training in UK. I was a Director of the EACTS School of Thoracic Surgery and now am a faculty member. I have worked with NHS England to obtain routine commissioning of lung volume reduction. I have performed over 500 LVR procedures (400 LVRS;100 EBLVR) since 1995 and I am now pioneering new indications for robot assisted thoracic surgery.

Akshay Patel graduated in 2012 as a medical doctor from the University of London, having completed his pre-clinical training at the University of Cambridge in 2009. In 2014, he commenced his specialist training in Cardiothoracic surgery. In 2022, he was awarded his PhD for his work in lung cancer immunobiology. Currently, he is a sixth year resident in Thoracic Surgery in the West Midlands deanery. His areas of interest are minimally invasive thoracic surgery and translational lung cancer biology.

Agathe Seguin-Givelet graduated in 1999 as a medical doctor at the Paris V University and after a thoracic and cardiovascular residency as a Thoracic and vascular surgeon in 2005. She has also been a university lecturer since 2012 at the University of Paris Sorbonne Cité. Her main topics were tracheal replacement and lung cancer surgery.

Moving to the Mutualist Montsouris Institute (Paris) in 2015, she is currently the Head of the Department of Thoracic Surgery part of the Thorax Institute since 2020. Her areas of interest are still minimally invasive lung surgery (VATS/RATS), sparing lung techniques (segmentectomies) thymic tumors and thoracic sarcomas lesions.

She is also involved in innovative and evolving techniques as endobronchial navigation, and transbronchial ablation.

Being part of the board of directors of the French Society of Thoracic and Cardio-Vascular Surgery, she participates in the organization of this specialty and in the teaching of young surgeons in training.

Anu Balan (MBBS, MRCP, FRCR) is a Consultant Cardiothoracic Radiologist who completed her radiology sub-specialty training at Chelsea and Westminster and the Royal Brompton Hospitals in 2010. Prior to being appointed to the Barts Health NHS Trust in 2016, she was a Consultant at Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge. 

Her areas of specialist interest are within COPD, lung cancer and cardiac imaging at the Barts Heart and Thorax Centre. She is currently a member of the Northeast London (NEL) Targeted Lung Health Check Delivery programme panel, works as an expert cardiothoracic radiologist for the UK Heart Lung Health (HLH) team and serves on the Executive committee of the BSTI (British Society of Thoracic Imaging). She has co-authored peer-reviewed papers and book chapters in the field of cardiothoracic imaging.

I am a Thoracic Surgeon in Verona, Italy and a Visiting Associate Professor at the University of Leeds after having spent 8 years at the Leeds Teaching Hospital Trust. I have obtained a Master in Robotic Thoracic Surgery in 2017. During my surgical training, I have been a visiting physician of foreign Institutions such as the Division of Thoracic Surgery, Washington University, St. Louis, USA and the Department of Thoracic surgery, University de Paris – Hotel Dieu Hospital, Paris, France.

I have been awarded a PhD at the University of Leeds in 2019 on The Role of Patients Reported Outcomes (PROMS) In Risk Assessment and Treatment Outcomes in Early-Stage Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer:

I am chairing the ESTS Women in General Thoracic Surgery Committee (@ests_womenThor), and I am a member of the SCTS Women in Cardiothoracic Surgery (WiCTS) committee (@SCTSWiCTS). I have been an advocate for Diversity and Inclusion in my speciality also participating as a member to several initiatives of the Women in Thoracic Surgery Society (WTS) since my residency period.

I am co-chairing the ESTS Patient-Centred Working Group developing a European Quality of Life App for surgical patients and patient-focused initiatives. I am also part of the EORTC Quality of Life Group, participating to initiative focusing on validating the Lung Cancer specific PROs questionnaires.

My research focuses on two areas a) evidence-based practice in thoracic surgery with particular interest in risk-stratification and postoperative morbidities and b) patient-centred and personalised care for complex lung oncological conditions. I have over 120 peer-reviewed articles published in international and impactful Journals, with an H-Index of 35.

Dr. Tomaž Štupnik graduated in 2000 as a medical doctor at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. He completed his training in Thoracic Surgery in 2008 and finished his Ph.D. in Medical Statistics in 2017 when he was habilitated to Assistant Professor at the University of Ljubljana. He was the first thoracic surgeon in South-East Europe to perform a VATS Lobectomy (2008) and the first to perform Uniportal VATS Lobectomy (2015). He also played a significant role in spreading the VATS technique to South-East Europe. In 2018 he led the surgical team that established a very successful Lung Transplant program in Slovenia. In collaboration with Ethicon, he developed the ‘Ethicon Stupnik VATS Simulator’ to enable the deliberate practice of Video-thoracoscopic surgical skills. Since 2016 these simulators have been deployed to Europe, North America, Japan, China, the Middle East, Australia, and New Zealand.

Ashok Muniappan completed residencies in General Surgery (2007) and Cardiothoracic Surgery (2009) at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). He also completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the MGH Transplantation Biology Research Center (2005) and mini-fellowships in clinical thoracic surgery at Mayo Clinic and University of Pittsburgh Medical Center before joining the faculty of MGH Division of Thoracic Surgery in 2010. He serves as the director of the medical student summer scholars program in thoracic surgery. He is dedicated to the education of medical students and surgical residents. He received the MGH Department of Surgery faculty teaching award in 2019 and the Cardiothoracic Surgery Residency teaching award in 2022. His research interests have focused on the management of complex general thoracic surgical problems such as tracheoesophageal fistula and he frequently collaborates on clinical research with colleagues in related specialties.

 

Jie Zhang is a Professor of the Department of Thoracic Surgery, Vice Chief of the Division of Esophagus Surgery & Director of Esophageal Endoscopic Treatment at Shanghai Chest Hospital.

He provides the diagnosis and treatment of thoracic diseases, including lung cancer, esophageal cancer and mediastinal tumor. He is a pioneer of endoscopic treatment for esophageal disease from the thoracic team in China. He did a post-doc fellowship at Fred Hutchison Cancer Research Center in 2003. In 2009, he was clinical fellow/ instructor under the supervision of Dr. Luketich in UPMC.  Before Dr Zhang joined Shanghai Chest Hospital in 2019, he was an assistant professor at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.  Dr. Zhang is a member of ILCCO, UICC, ATS, ASCO, STS and AACR. He is also a Secretary of the Thoracic Oncology Specialty Committee, Shanghai Anticancer Society.  Up to now, he has published 70 scientific papers, including CANCER, ANNUAL OF SURGERY, et al. His research focuses on tumor microenvironment and preservation of organs for early stage esophageal cancer.