The Barcelona HPV Course 2026

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 Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) and Doctor of Medicine from the University of Barcelona.

He is a colorectal surgeon and has served as Chief of Section and Professor of Surgery in the Department of General Surgery at Hospital Universitari Germans Trias i Pujol, as well as Director of the School of Medicine of UAB in Badalona (Barcelona).

He has developed an extensive academic career, participating in national and international clinical trials, and has published more than 160 scientific articles in the field of colorectal surgery, many of them focused on anal dysplasia.

He is currently Director of the Surgical Process at Hospital Universitari Parc Taulí (Sabadell, 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).

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

Internal Medicine Specialist with clinical and research expertise in Infectious Diseases, currently serving as Associate Head at Fundación Jiménez Díaz University Hospital. He holds a PhD in Medicine from the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM) and is an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine at UAM. Since 2011, he has been a Principal Investigator and collaborator in several ongoing research projects at the Fundación Jiménez Díaz Health Research Institute (IIS-FJD, UAM). His main areas of interest include HIV/AIDS infection, sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including human papillomavirus (HPV) infection, infective endocarditis, tropical medicine, and international health.

Head of the Cervical Pathology Unit at Vall d’Hebron University Hospital, Barcelona.

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).

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.

Medical specialist in internal medicine. He is currently performing his assistance in the area of infectious diseases, specifically in HIV and STIs in the Drassanes Unit – Vall d’Hebron University Hospital, in Barcelona. His areas of expertise are combined HIV prevention, the approach to recreational drug use in sexualized contexts (Chemsex) and anal dysplasia screening.

Dr. Clara Gené Škrabec is a specialist physician in General and Digestive Surgery. She currently carries out her clinical and research activities at Germans Trias i Pujol University Hospital in Badalona, where she is a member of the Department of General and Digestive Surgery.

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 HIV-STI 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.

Bachelor’s degree in Medicine. Completed residency in Pathological Anatomy in Turin (Italy) and at the Hospital Clínic of Barcelona. Member of the Pathological Anatomy Service at Vall d’Hebron Hospital since 2005. Since 2006, specialist physician in the Pathological Anatomy Service at Vall d’Hebron Hospital. Clinical and research activities focused mainly on tumor and functional/inflammatory digestive pathology and urological pathology.

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.

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.

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.

Angelika Riemer is heading the Division of Immunotherapy and Immunoprevention at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) in Heidelberg. She studied medicine and molecular biology at the University of Vienna (Austria), Monash University in Melbourne (Australia) and University of Bristol (UK), and received her MD degree in 2002 and her PhD degree in 2005. In 2008/2009, she did a postdoctoral fellowship at the Cancer Vaccine Center of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School (Boston, USA), and moved to Heidelberg in 2010. She is a board-certified Clinical Immunologist and Dermatologist, and holds a venia legendi (approx. Associate Professorship) in Immunology.

Her scientific work focuses on the development of a therapeutic HPV vaccine based on validated target T cell epitopes. This validation step is provided by mass spectrometry-based direct proof of a peptide being HLA-presented on a tumor cell’s surface, as well as immunogenicity assessment. The group has further developed orthotopic HPV-dependent tumor models in MHC-humanized mouse strains to allow preclinical efficacy testing of candidate therapeutic HPV vaccine formulations.

The epitope validation pipeline developed for low-abundance viral epitopes is now also widely applied for tumor antigen/neoepitope characterization.

Dr. Riemer is a member of the Extended Directorate of the National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT) Heidelberg, and co-coordinates the NCT program Immunotherapy. She is also part of the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF), where she co-coordinates the research area Infections of the Immunocompromised Host, and is deputy site speaker for the DZIF partner site Heidelberg. Further, she is a member of the expert steering group of the DZIF Bridging Topic “Vaccines”. As of summer 2026, Angelika Riemer is one of the two speakers of the DGfI study group Vaccines.

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.