Prof. Dr. Med. Winfried Häuser is specialist of general internal medicine, psychosomatic medicine and pain medicine. He is senior consultant for gastroenterology, hepatology and pain/palliative care medicine, Department of Internal Medicine I, Klinikum Saarbrücken Germany. He is adjunct professor of the Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy of the Technical University Munich, Germany. From 2004-2014, he served as General Secretary of the German Interdisciplinary Pain Society (DIVS). He is member of the advisory committee of the German Pain Society since 2012. He was president of the German Pain Congress 2017.

His main clinical and research interests are drug and psychological therapies of chronic functional pain syndromes (fibromyalgia, IBS, chronic pelvic pain) and cancer pain. He has scientific collaborations with several researchers worldwide, e.g. Professor Fred Wolfe, Wichita (USA), Professor Dan Clauw, Michigan (USA), Professor Dr. Mary-Ann Fitzcharles, Montreal (Canada) and Dr. Jacob Ablin, Tel Aviv (Israel).

He is co-editor of the Cochrane Pain, Palliative and Supportive Care Group. He has published systematic reviews on drug therapies (antidepressants, anticonvulsants, cannabis-based medicines, opioids, NSAIDs) in chronic pain syndromes.

He is the head of the steering committee of the German guidelines on fibromyalgia and opioids in chronic non-cancer pain and member of the steering group of the EULAR recommendations on the management of fibromyalgia. He is the head of the task force on cannabis-based medicines for chronic pain management of the European Pain Federation.

Professor Dror Mevorach is a Chairman of Medicine and directs the Rheumatology Research Center at Hadassah and the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel. He served as the Vice-Dean for Teaching Affairs of the Hebrew University Faculty of Medicine. His research is focused on understanding physiology and pathophysiology of humans via naturally occurring monogenic germline mutations that cause autoimmune autoinflammatory and immune mediated diseases. Prof Mevorach has published over 100 scientific articles.

I am a caregiver and volunteer.

Vice President of AISF - The Italian Association on Fibromyalgia - since 2012

Board Member and Treasurer of ENFA - The European Network of Fibromyalgia Associations since 2019.

Piercarlo Sarzi-Puttini is currently Director Rheumatology Unit, L. Sacco University Hospital, Milan, Italy. Professional Societes: Societa Italiana de Reumatologia, Collegio Medici Ospedalieri Italiana, American College of Rheumatology and Myopain Society. Every year he participates in different national and international congresses as speaker and/or participant. Dr. Sarzi-Puttini is co-author of nearly 330 papers and more than 200 abstracts, mostly on the clinical aspects and treatment of rheumatic diseases, cardiovascular manifestations on autoimmune diseases, fibromyalgia and autoimmune diseases. He is author or co-author of 5 books and 15 chapters.

Zabludowicz Center for Autoimmune Diseases
Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer, Tel Aviv University, Israel
Head of the Mosaic Centre of Autoimmunity in Saint Petersburg University

Yehuda Shoenfeld is the founder and head of the Zabludowicz Center for Autoimmune Diseases, at the Sheba Medical Center, which is affiliated to the Sackler Faculty of Medicine in Tel-Aviv University, in Israel. Professor Shoenfeld is also the Incumbent of the Laura Schwarz-Kipp Chair for Research of Autoimmune Diseases at the Tel-Aviv University.

Professor Shoenfeld’s clinical and scientific works focus on autoimmune and rheumatic diseases, and he has published more than 2020 papers in journals such as New Eng J Med, Nature, Lancet, Proc Nat Acad Scie, J Clin Invest, J Immunol, Blood, FASEB, J Exp Med, Circulation, Cancer and others. His articles have had over 45,000 citations. He has written more than 350 chapters in books, and has authored and edited 35 books, some of which became cornerstones in science and clinical practice, such as “The Mosaic of Autoimmunity”, “Infections and Autoimmunity” and the textbook “Autoantibodies” and “Diagnostic criteria of autoimmune diseases”, all of which were published by Elsevier and sold thousands of copies.

Professor Shoenfeld is on the editorial boards of 43 journals in the field of rheumatology and autoimmunity and is the founder and the editor of the IMAJ (Israel Medical Association Journal) the representative journal of science and medicine in the English language in Israel, and also is the founder and Editor of Autoimmunity Reviews (Elsevier) (Impact factor 8.9) and co-Editor of the Journal of Autoimmunity (Impact factor 8). For the past twenty years Yehuda has been the Editor of “Harefuah” – The Israel journal in medicine (Hebrew).

Professor Shoenfeld received the EULAR prize in 2005, in Vienna, Austria: “The infectious etiology of anti-phospholipid syndrome”, and received a gold medal from the Slovak Society of Physicians for his contribution to Israel – Slovakia collaboration (March 2006). He is also an honorary member of the Hungarian Association of Rheumatology and the Royel Society of Physicians (UK). In UC Davis, USA, Professor Shoenfeld received the Nelson’s Prize for Humanity and Science for 2008. In 2009 he was honoured as Doctoris Honoris Causa, from Debrecen University (Hungary), and from 2009 he is honorary member of the Slovenian National Academy of Sciences. He was recently awarded a Life Contribution Prize in Internal Medicine in Israel, 2012 as well as the ACR Master Award in 2013.

Professor Shoenfeld has educated a long list of students with >40 becoming heads of departments and institutes.

Disclosures
None.

Present academic position: Professor of Medical Psychology, Head of Outpatient Clinic for Psychological Pain Therapy, University of Marburg

Education, academic and clinical positions
· Study of Psychology, Humboldt-University Berlin (1983-1989), Diploma Psychology (1989)
· Clinical Psychologist, Hospital for Rheumatology (1989-1999)
· License for Psychological Psychotherapy (1999)
· Dissertation (PhD), University of Tubingen, PhD (1999) supported by Dr. Niels Birbaumer, PhD
· License for Psychological Pain Therapy (2001)
· Head of the Clinic for Psychotherapy and Diagnostics at Psychology Dept., Humboldt-University Berlin (1999-2002)
· Head of the Research Dept. at the Hospital for Psychosomatics, Central Institute of Mental Health,
· Mannheim (2002-2003)
· Postdoc at the Center for Pain Research on Impact, Measurement & Effectiveness (C-PRIME), Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle (2003-2005) supported by Dr. Dennis C. Turk, PhD
· Habilitation, Department of Clinical and Cognitive Neuroscience, Central Institute of Mental Health, University of Heidelberg, 2006, supported by Dr. Herta Flor, PhD
· Scholarship Holder (DFG) at the Center for Pain Research and Innovation, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (2009-2011) supported by Dr. William Maixner, DDS, PhD
· Full Professor of Medical Psychology, University of Marburg, since 2011

Research interests
· Psychophysiology of rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, fibromyalgia
· Neuropsychological impairment in patients suffering from anxiety, arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, fibromyalgia, lower back pain
· Plasticity in fibromyalgia
· Chronic pain’s influence on baroreceptors, HRV. BP, and other biometric values
· Effect of CBT and OBT on pain, rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, fibromyalgia
· Empathy and Psychopathy in Medical Students
· Efficacy of Assertiveness Training in Medical students

Honours
· 2004 Poster Award of German Association of Rheumatology
· 2007 Research Award of Pain by German Association for Study of Pain
· 2008 International Award for Fibromyalgia Research
· 2009 Nomination for the Award of the European Federation of IASP Chapters
· 2012 German Pain Prize, Frankfurt, 2012
· Adjunct Professor, Center for Pain Research and Innovation, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (since 2011)
· Invited Expert in AWMF-Guidelines for etiopathogenetic, diagnostics and therapy in fibromyalgia (since 2008)

Publications (max. 5; only clinical trials; only last 5 years):

Evers AW, Zautra A, Thieme K. Stress and Resilience in rheumatic diseases: a review and glimpse into the future. Nature Review Rheumatology 2011 7(7): 409-415.

Fischer S, Doerr JM, Strahler J, Thieme K, Nater U. Stress exacerbates pain in the everyday lives of women with fibromyalgia syndrome—The role of cortisol and alpha-amylase. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 2016 63:68–77.

Thieme K, Turk DC, Gracely RH, Maixner W, Flor H. The relationship among psychological and psychophysiological characteristics of fibromyalgia patients. J Pain. 2015 16(2): 186-196.

Thieme K, Turk DC, Gracely RH, Flor H. Differential psychophysiological effects of operant and cognitive behavioural treatments in women with fibromyalgia. Eur J Pain. 2016 Jun 15. doi: 10.1002/ejp.872.

Thieme K, Meller T, Evermann U, Malinowski R, Mathys M, Gracely RH, Maixner W, Turk DC. Efficacy of Systolic Extinction Training (SET) in Fibromyalgia Patients with elevated Blood Pressure Response to Stress – A Tailored RCT Study. Arthritis Care Res (Hoboken). 2018 Jun 8. doi: 10.1002/acr.23615.

Diana Torta is Research Professor at the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Science, KU Leuven Belgium. Her research uses a combination of imaging and behavioural methods to identify the conditions and mechanisms that lead to pain modulation in humans.

Her lab is currently funded by the KU Leuven and the Flanders Research Foundation. She is recipient of national and international awards including the Belgian-American Educational Foundation (Alumni award for the social sciences 2017), and the E-G-G EFIC Grunenthal prize for young promising pain researchers (2015).

Ana M. Contreras-Merino is a General Health Psychologist and specialist in Psychological Intervention on Violence Against Women. She is recipient of a national grant of the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities oriented to the training of university professors (FPU2018-02611), and she is currently doing her PhD studies in the Faculty of Humanities and Education Sciences of the University of Jaén (Jaén, Spain), researching possible markers in the diagnosis of fibromyalgia and in the evaluation of the therapeutic efficacy of psychological interventions. She is a tutor in courses like “Applied Psychological Intervention” in the Department of Psychology of the University of Jaén (Jaén, Spain). She also participates like an Honorary Collaborator in the Department of Psychology of the University of Córdoba (Córdoba, Spain), carrying out research and teaching assistance tasks in courses like “Social Psychology”. Moreover, she is a member of the Working Group “Gender Perspective in Psychology” at the Official College of Psychology of Western Andalusia (Córdoba, Spain). Her main research interests are fibromyalgia, women’s health, emotional regulation, feminist therapy, and educational equity.

Dr Jessica Eccles trained in medicine at University of Cambridge and University of Oxford. As an MRC Clinical Research Training Fellow she completed her PhD in the relationship between joint hypermobility, autonomic dysfunction and psychiatric symptoms and is now an Clinical Senior Lecturer at Brighton and Sussex Medical School in the UK. She is an Honorary Consultant in Liaison Psychiatry. She holds honorary clinical contracts with both Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust and Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust.   Her work explores brain-body interactions with a focus on neuropsychiatric manifestations of connective tissue and musculoskeletal disorder.   She holds prestigious grants exploring neural connectivity, brain fog, mechanisms of pain and fatigue and was awarded a prestigious MQ Versus Arthritis Fellows Award to conduct a randomised clinical trial of a new targeted treatment for anxiety in hypermobility.  Alongside clinical academic colleagues at BSMS, Dr Alessandro Colasanti, Dr Eccles is a clinician in the exciting new Immunopsychiatry Service based at Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust and in the Neurodevelopmental Service. 

• Principal investigator of the Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory belonging to the Psychobiology Unit of the School of Health Sciences at the Rey Juan Carlos University.
• I am focused on the study of both neural and behavioral correlates of cognitive processes involved in the modulation of pain experience in fibromyalgia patients. Currently, my main interests are related to the characterization of the neural substrate underlying cognitive dysfunction of these chronic pain patients. 
• ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8149-4986

Senior lecturer Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences University of Antwerp

Deputy Head Department of General Internal Medicine Antwerp University Hospital

Jan Tomš is a specialist of internal medicine and rheumatology. He works in the department of rheumatology and gastroenterology in University Hospital Hradec Králové and partially in the emergency department. He is a lecturer at the Faculty of Medicine in the city of Hradec Králové. He is focused on connective tissue diseases and fibromyalgia.