The Barcelona HPV Course 2024

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).

Allergist, Doctor of Medicine and associate professor of Immunology at URL. Special interest in research on the immune system, anaphylaxis, atopic dermatitis, urticaria/angioedema and desensitization to chemotherapy. Involved in multiple scientific organizations, being the Coordinator of the Skin Allergy Committee of the SCAIC. Passionate about innovation in medicine and eHealth, part of the Innovation Committee of the Vall d’Hebron University Campus.

Associate physician in the Infectious Diseases, Microbiology and Parasitology Unit of the Virgen del Rocío University Hospital in Seville. He completed his residency in Internal Medicine at this hospital, completed a master’s degree in Autoimmune Diseases at the University of Huelva and a University Expert Course in support of people with HIV from the UNED. Specialized as a High Resolution Anoscopist by The American Society for Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology / University of San Francisco, USA. He has completed rotations at Emory University Hospital and Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, focusing in areas of immunology.

Currently, carrying out his doctoral thesis on screening techniques for anal dysplasias in patients with HIV at the University of Seville. In 2023, he completed a Master’s Degree in Advanced Clinical Care in Infectious Diseases from the SEIMC and the University of Seville. Their work focuses on: care for people with HIV; diagnosis and treatment of STIs; Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for people at risk of acquiring HIV; care for people with problematic chemsex use; and diagnosis and treatment of anal dysplasias due to human papillomavirus using high-resolution anoscopy.

Since 2018, he has been a member of the Interlevel Commission for STIs and HIV of the Junta de Andalucía. Since 2022, he has been coordinator of the Andalusian Plan against HIV and other STIs. In 2023, he was appointed regional coordinator of strategies against sexualized drug use. He has participated as an expert in the preparation of consensus documents on PrEP and recommendations for the early diagnosis of HIV in emergency services. In 2022, he was elected national coordinator for updating consensus documents on STIs and PrEP in Spain by GeSIDA-SEIMC.

Due to her interest in these areas, she has created an informative website for patients and health professionals, where she shares information about sexual health, STIs, HIV, PrEP and chemsex: cesarsotomayor.com

Fernando Dias Gonçalves Lima is a physician in the Dermatology department and a PhD candidate at Amsterdam UMC. His PhD research focuses on biomarkers in anal cancer screening, with a particular emphasis on methylation markers. Fernando is the coordinating researcher of the MARINE study, a large cohort study aimed at validating methylation markers in people with anal dysplasia. In addition to his research, he is a skilled high-resolution anoscopist and conducts weekly clinics.

Dr. Francesc García Cuyàs is a Doctor in Digestive System Surgery, currently Deputy Chief Medical Officer and Chief of Digital Transformation at the Sant Joan de Déu Hospital in Barcelona. He is an accredited associate professor at the Faculty of Medicine of the UVIC-UCC and the Autonomous University of Barcelona, and President of the Catalan Society of Digital Health.
For 5 years he has been director of the Social Health ICT Foundation, and director of the ICT and Health Chair at the UVIC-UCC, General Coordinator of ICTs of the Department of Health of the Generalitat de Catalunya, Master by ESADE in Management of Integrated Services of Health, director of the Strategic Secretary and Information Systems of the Institut Català de la Salut from two years. He was also director of the Argos project at the Germans Trías i Pujol Hospital and deputy of the Surgery Service of the same hospital.

Fight Infections Foundation, HUGTiP, Badalona.

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.

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).

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.

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.

Jose Luis Blanco is a consultant at the HIV / AIDS Unit and Infectious Disease Service, Associate Professor University of Barcelona since 2015 and Professor del Master of AIDS University of Barcelona since 2002. He is Consultant in Charge of the Research in HIV Resistance and Rescue Therapies, Sexually Transmission Diseases Unit and Program of Anal Canal Prevention Program and he  is author of more than 100 scientific articles and the principal investigator of national and international projects in the field of HIV infection and related infections.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.