The Barcelona HPV Course 2025

Adrià Curran is a staff physician of the Infectious Diseases Department and the coordinator of the Anal Dysplasia Screening Unit of Vall d’Hebron University Hospital. He has carried out specific training on HPV anal dysplasia in HIV patients at the University of San Francisco (CA, USA) with Prof. Joel Palefsky. He is a member of the International Anal Neoplasia Society. He participates as a researcher in multiple international clinical trials and has published more than 100 articles in national and international journals and book chapters on various aspects of HIV infection, HPV and its treatment.

Degree in Medicine and Surgery from the Autonomous University of Barcelona and Doctor of Medicine from the University of Barcelona.
Colorectal surgeon at the Hospital Universitari Germans Trias i Pujol, Badalona (Barcelona).

Laia Alemany holds a Medicine degree (University of Barcelona-UB, 2000), a speciality in Preventive Medicine and Public Health (Vall d’Hebron University Hospital, 2005), a Master in Epidemiology and Public Health (Pompeu Fabra University-UPF, 2005), and a Master in Molecular Oncology (Spanish National Cancer Research Center-CNIO, 2017).

Specialist in Anatomic Pathology (2006).
PhD in Morphology and Structural and Molecular Pathology from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) (2017).
Specialist in Cytology and Ocular Pathology.
Currently Coordinator of the Cytology Section of the Anatomic Pathology Service of the Vall d’Hebron University Hospital in Barcelona, Spain.
Outgoing President of the Catalan Society of Cytopathology.
Vice-President of the Spanish Society of Cytology.
Member of the European Ophthalmic Pathology Society (EOPS).

Javier Corral, is a general and digestive system surgeon trained at the Germans Trias i Pujol Hospital in Badalona in 2018.
Currently attending surgeon at this center and devotes his time in the field of coloproctology, with special interest in the field of proctology, pelvic floor pathology and colorectal cancer.
At the end of his residency at the Hospital he was awarded a postresidency grant, thanks to the “Premis Talents” program, with a multidisciplinary research project on fecal incontinence as a sequela in ischemic stroke, performing among other physiological and anatomical studies with manometry and anal ultrasound.
He also participates as a collaborating proctologist in the “Fundació Lluita contra la Sida” with the screening of anal dysplastic lesions with high resolution anoscopy and treating them with topical or infrared treatments. This field is the focus of his thesis project, for which he obtained Excellent Cum Laude in 2021.
In 2022 he decided to start a Postgraduate Degree in Clinical Sexology since his clinical practice in anal dysplasia consultation has led him to treat many patients of the LGTBIQ+ collective and to see the importance of sex and sexual and anal health in this population. Thus, being able to treat with more knowledge, tolerance and respect.
Since December 2021, he has been dedicated to the dissemination and awareness of Anal and Sexual Health in the LGTBIQ+ collective through instragram, with already more than 12.000 followers (@drcorralproctologia).

Associate physician of the Infectious Diseases Service of the Bellvitge University Hospital. She works in the HIV and STI Unit where she carries out care and research work in the field of HPV and HIV-related comorbidities.

Specialist in Dermatology and Venereology trained at the Hospital Clínic in Barcelona.

She currently works as a senior specialist in the Dermatology Service of this centre, focusing on the area of sexually transmitted infections and neoplastic pathology related to HPV.

She has more than 9 years experience in screening for anal canal dysplasia in patients at high risk for anal cancer and she has published several research papers in national and international journals especially in the field of sexually transmitted infections.

She is also the head of the STI and HIV Research Group of the AEDV (Spanish Academy of Dermatology) since 2022.

Internist, master in infectious diseases. Previous experience in cooperation in the field of HIV and Tuberculosis with Doctors Without Borders and in community care for STIs at BCN Checkpoint. Since 2019 he has been working at the Drassanes-Vall d’Hebron STI/HIV unit where he combines assistance with clinical research, including his participation in the anal dysplasia screening unit.

Degree and PhD in Medicine, Infectious Diseases Service, Anal Dysplasia Screening Unit, Hospital Universitari Vall d’Hebron, Barcelona.

Joel Palefsky, M.D., C.M., F.R.C.P.(C). Professor of Medicine and Infectious Diseases at the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine. He is an internationally recognized expert on the molecular biology, treatment, pathogenesis and natural history of anogenital human papillomavirus infections, particularly in the setting of HIV infection. He is the director of the world’s first clinic devoted to prevention of anal cancer, the Anal Neoplasia Clinic Research and Education Center at the UCSF Cancer Center. He is the vice-chair of the National Cancer Institute (NCI)-supported AIDS Malignancy Consortium. He is the chair of the Anal Cancer /HSIL Outcomes Research (ANCHOR) Study, a national multi-site NIH study designed to determine whether treatment of anal cancer precursor lesions prevents the development of anal cancer and to identify biomarkers of progression. He is founder and past president of the International Anal Neoplasia Society and is past president of the International Papillomavirus Society. He is the founder and chairperson of the IPVS International HPV Awareness Campaign.

Degree in Medicine and Surgery from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (1999). Specialist in Preventive Medicine and Public Health since 2004; Master in Public Health and Epidemiology from the Universitat Pompeu Fabra-Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona since 2002; Head of the Department of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology at the Hospital Universitari Vall d’Hebron since October 2022; Associate Professor at the Universitat Autònoma de Medicina since 2005. Co-director of the annual course Update in Immunizations of the Hospital Universitari Vall d’Hebron since 2022. Professional career focused on vaccination of high-risk patients and population-based cancer screening programs.

Graduated in Medicine from the University of Barcelona in 2003 and Specialist in Internal Medicine in 2009. He holds a Master’s Degree in Infectious Diseases from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and a PhD in Medicine summa cum laude from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, obtained in 2013.
He is Head of the Infectious Disease Unit at Hospital del Mar in Barcelona. He has developed his clinical career at Hospital del Mar and various private healthcare centers as an infectious diseases physician. He leads a research line on inflammation associated with chronic viral infections at the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM). He is currently an associate researcher at the Department of Immunology & Infection at the University of California, Davis, where he completed a postdoctoral stay in 2018 and 2019.
He has published over 50 articles in indexed journals and is the first author of more than 20 of them.

Fight Infections Foundation, HUGTiP, Badalona.

Dr María del Carmen Hidalgo Tenorio is an internist and specialist in infectious diseases at the Hospital Universitario Virgen de las Nieves in Granada. She graduated in Medicine and Surgery from the University of Granada in 1996 and obtained her doctorate in 2002 with the thesis “Urinary infections in patients with lupus,” awarded “cum laude.” Since 2003, she has been working as a specialist physician in the Infectious Diseases Service and has been accredited as an excellent-level infectologist by the Andalusian Agency for Healthcare Quality since 2007. Additionally, she completed a master’s degree in infectious diseases at the University of Seville in 2013.

Sergio Serrano-Villar is an Infectious Diseases physician at University Hospital Ramón y Cajal in Madrid. He received his PhD in Medicine in 2011 at Complutense University of Madrid and has worked as a research fellow at University of San Francisco under the mentorship of Dr. Steven Deeks.

Dr. Serrano-Villar has been involved in HIV research for 15 years, with a special focus on the immunopathogenesis and clinical consequences of chronic inflammation during treated HIV infection, including the role of the microbiota in the sustainment of chronic immune dysfunction. He combines his clinical work at the HIV clinics of University Hospital Ramón y Cajal in Madrid with his research activity. He is the coordinating investigator of a European Horizon 2020 proposal, an international effort to exploit the microbiome as a screening tool in the screening of anal cancer, and has led the development of studies aimed at manipulating the microbiome in HIV-infected individuals, including clinical trials with nutritional interventions and fecal microbiota transplantation. He is also leading multicenter observational studies and a clinical trial to better understand the effects of different ART strategies on chronic inflammation. More recently, he has expanded his research lines to the COVID19 and cancer fields, in which he is aiming to gain understanding in the immunopathogenesis of severe COVID19 and to explore the manipulation of the microbiota as a strategy to enhance the efficacy of immunotherapy in patients with advanced lung cancer.

Dr Silvia de Sanjosé holds a Medical Degree from the University of Barcelona (1980), a Specialty in Family and Community Medicine (1983), and a Master’s in Epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (1986). She obtained a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of London (1989) and a Doctorate in Medicine from the University of Barcelona.

She has developed her career in several leading international research centers such as IARC (Lyon), the National Cancer Institute (USA), and CREAL (Barcelona). She has nearly 30 years of expertise in the epidemiology of Human Papillomavirus (HPV) and related cancers, participating in pioneering studies that established the causal link between HPV and cervical cancer.

She led the Cancer Epidemiology Research Program at the Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO) and coordinated large international studies on global HPV genotyping, as well as cervical cancer screening guidelines in Catalonia and Spain. Currently, she is a senior consultant at PATH, the National Cancer Institute, and ICO, and chairs the Multidisciplinary Collaborative Group for the Scientific Monitoring of COVID-19. She served as President of the International Papillomavirus Society (2015–2018) and is an affiliated professor at the University of Washington.

Marta del Pino is Consultant of the Gynaecological Oncology Unit of the Clinic Hospital of Barcelona and associated professor of the University of Barcelona, accredited by the AQU and ANECA. She performed her post-doc project in HPV in the Molecular Pathology Department of the Vrij Universiteit Medisch Centrum of Amsterdam, The Netherlands and holds a Masters degree in Statistics and Epidemiology from the Autonomic University of Barcelona (UAB).

Dra del Pino’s interests focus on HPV-related cancers specially cancers from the low genital tract. She practises as a staff medical oncologist in a major university hospital in Barcelona and at the same time she leads the group of HPV translational research in the Gynaecological Oncology Unit. Dra del Pino has been involved in HPV vaccination trials and in the study of biomarkers of detection and progression HPV-related lesions. She has published several papers in indexed journals and is the principal investigator of national and international competitive projects.

Dra del Pino took part of the experts’ committee that developed the “Cervical cancer screening guidelines”, updated in 2022. She took part of the autonomic committee that developed cervical cancer screening program in Catalonia.

She was board member of the International Federation of Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology (IFCPC) (2016-2023). Currently, she is the vice-president of the Spanish Society of Cervical Pathology and colposcopy (AEPCC) and president of the Colposcopy Accreditation AEPCC Committee. From the national and international societies, she has leaded the development of guidelines about HPV-related diseases and HPV vaccination and she is coordinating the development of the international quality control standards of the colposcopy.

Ms Tamzin Cuming trained at the University of Cambridge and Guys and St Thomas’ Hospitals.

Ms Cuming went on to do her initial surgical training in Brighton and then on the North East Thames training program. She first came across high resolution anoscopy (HRA) during this training at the National unit at Homerton Hospital in East London.

Having completed her Certificate of Completion of Training and her Masters in Surgical Education from Imperial College, Ms Cuming became a Consultant Surgeon at Homerton Hospital and began learning HRA in 2013.

She now runs the national unit, the Homerton Anogenital Neoplasia Service. She is also the President-elect of the International Anal Neoplasia Society and the Chair of the Women in Surgery Forum at the Royal College of Surgeons of England.