Organisation
Nordic Severe Asthma Network (NSAN)
Celeste Porsbjerg 🇩🇰
Chair
Prof, Ph.D. Celeste Porsbjerg is a professor of severe asthma the Department of Respiratory Medicine at Bispebjerg Hospital, Copenhagen, where she heads the severe asthma clinic, and chairs the Respiratory Research Unit. Her research revolves around solving key clinical issues in difficult asthma, understanding disease mechanisms, and personalising asthma management. Celeste Porsbjerg chairs the Danish Severe Asthma Registry (DSAR), and is the national representative for Denmark in SHARP and ISAR.
Apostolos Bossios 🇸🇪
Vice Chair
Apostolos Bossios is associate professor and respiratory consultant at Karolinska Institutet and Karolinska University Hospital. Â He is a principal researcher and research group leader at the Division of Lung and Airway Research, Institute of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institutet.
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Apostolos Bossios is a respiratory physician-scientist combining active clinical duties with clinical and translational research on airway diseases, focusing on severe asthma and bronchiectasis.
He is on the steering committee of The Swedish National Airway Register and SHARP: Severe Heterogeneous Asthma Research Collaboration, Patient-centred, the European Respiratory Society (ERS) Clinical research collaboration on Severe Asthma. Apostolos Bossios is currently the head of Airway diseases, Asthma, COPD, and Chronic Cough, assembly of ERS.
Lauri Lehtmäki 🇫🇮
Vice Chair
Lauri Lehtimäki is a professor of respiratory medicine at Tampere University and a senior consultant at Allergy Centre of Tampere University Hospital. His research focuses on epidemiology and management of asthma and airway diseases. Prof Lehtimäki is co-chair of the Nordic Severe Asthma Network and participates also in ISAR and SHARP.
National members
Christer Jansson 🇸🇪
Christer Janson is a professor and consultant at Uppsala University and Uppsala University Hospital. His main scientific activities are research in asthma, allergy and COPD. He is the president of the Swedish Association for Allergology and an EAACI research and outreach committee member. He is a past chair of the Epidemiology and Environment Assembly of the ERS and a scientific advisor for the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare.
Charlotte Suppli Ulrik 🇩🇰
Professor MD DMSc FERS
Head of Respiratory Research Unit, Severe Asthma Clinic and Management of Asthma during Pregnancy Programme.
Head of ERS Assembly 6 (Environment and Epidemiology)
FP Head of Airways, Anaesthesiology and Skin, University of Copenhagen
Dept. of Respiratory Medicine
Copenhagen University Hospital – Hvidovre
Denmark
Hannu Kankarantaa MD, PhD, FERS 🇫🇮
Hannu Kankaanranta is Professor of Asthma and Allergy Research at the Krefting Research Centre at the Gothenburg University, Sweden. In addition, he is professor of Respiratory Medicine at the University of Tampere, Finland. Previously, between 2007 and 2020, he was the head of Respiratory Medicine clinic at Seinäjoki Central Hospital serving a population of 200,000 persons. Hannu Kankaanranta is a clinical specialist in adult respiratory medicine and allergology. In addition to respiratory medicine, Hannu Kankaanranta has a long history in pharmacological research and is also a clinical specialist of clinical pharmacology and drug therapy.
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Hannu Kankaanranta has been actively involved in the preparation of the clinical guidelines of asthma and COPD in Finland. Previously his main research interest was eosinophils, their survival and the mechanisms of action of asthma and COPD drugs. His most recent research activity concerns asthma and allergy in adults, adult-onset asthma, T2-low asthma, their diagnostics, mechanisms, therapy and comorbidities. Hannu Kankaanranta is the principal investigator of the West Sweden Asthma Study (WSAS), WSAS-COVID study (WSAS-COVID), Seinäjoki Adult Asthma Study (SAAS) and FinEsS Western Finland study.Â
Bernt Arli 🇳🇴
Bernt B. Aarli is senior consultant at the Department of Thoracic Medicine, Haukeland University Hospital where he leads the severe asthma clinic and the local severe asthma registry. He is an associate professor of medicine at the Department of Clinical Science, University of Bergen with research interest ranging from obstructive lung diseases to cystic fibrosis and post covid rehabilitation. He is the Norwegian delegate in the Nordic Severe Asthma Network.
Data management and statistics
Kirk Geale 🇸🇪
Kirk Geale is the CEO of Quantify Research and serves on its Board of Directors. He is a PhD candidate at Umeå University (Sweden), a graduate of the Stanford University Graduate School of Business (USA), holds an MSc from Lund University (Sweden) in Economics and a Bachelor of Commerce in Management Economics in Industry and Finance from the Gordon S. Lang School of Business and Economics at Guelph University (Canada). Kirk is an expert in real-world evidence generation, economic modelling, value demonstration, and health technology assessment with more than 10 years’ international experience. His other engagements include lecturing for organisations such as ISPOR, CADTH, the Swedish Agency for Health Technology Assessment and Assessment of Social Services (SBU), the Basel Biometric Society and the European Federation of Statisticians in the Pharmaceutical Industry (EFSPI).
Patrik Sandin 🇸🇪
Patrik Sandin is a Lead Analyst at Quantify. He holds a MSc in Physics from Stockholm University, Sweden and a PhD in Theoretical Physics from Karlstad University, Sweden. Patrik has 6 years’ experience working with real-world evidence generation, reimbursement models, and data analytics within the life-science industry. Patrik has participated in studies in several disease areas, including dermatology, respiratory diseases, orphan/rare diseases, and psychiatric diseases.
Olivia Ernstsson 🇸🇪
Olivia Ernstsson, PhD, works as a Project Leader within Real-World Evidence and Analytics at Quantify Research and as an affiliated researcher at Karolinska Institutet, Sweden. Olivia holds an MSc in Health Economics, Policy, and Management, and a PhD in Medical Science from Karolinska Institutet. Olivia has several years of experience in working with real-world evidence generation, register-based research in the Nordic countries, health economics and health outcomes research.Â
Sponsors
Centralized NORDSTAR administration and coordination unit
Bispebjerg Hospital, Copenhagen, Denmark
Susanne Hansen PhD 🇩🇰
Clinical Epidemiologist
Anna von Bülow MD PhD 🇩🇰
Anna von Bülow is a postdoc researcher at the Department of Respiratory and Infectious Medicine Bispebjerg Hospital, Copenhagen. Anna is responsible for the management and coordination of different NORDSTAR research projects. She has several years of experience within the field of severe asthma. Her work focuses specifically on disease trajectories, morbidity and management of these patients.
Besides the NORDSTAR collaboration, Anna is involved in several national and international asthma collaborations including: the Danish Severe Asthma Registry, the Nordic Severe Asthma Network and rising star member of SHARP. Parallel to her post.doc research position Anna is working as a specialist in training within respiratory medicine.
