Speakers

Pierre Amarenco is Professor and Chairman of the Department of Neurology and Stroke Centre at Bichat University Hospital, Denis Diderot University and Medical School, Paris, France. He is also Co-Chair of the National Institute of Health and Clinicial Research (INSERM) Unit 698, where he undertakes clinical research in atherothrombosis. Professor Amarenco's main research interest is in the understanding and prevention of stroke. He is currently principal investigator of the GÉNIC study; the Multiple Atherosclerotic Sites in Stroke Study (MASS); the Aortic arch Related Cerebral Hazard (ARCH) trial; the Lacunar Bain Infarction, Cerebral Hypereactivity, and Atorvastatin Trial (Lacunar-B.I.C.H.A.T.); The SOSTIA study; The TRUST-TPA trial; and the AMISTAD study. He is also involved in several on-going epidemiological studies on carotid intima-media thickness. Professor Amarenco currently serves on the steering committee of the Stroke Prevention by Aggressive Reduction of Cholesterol Levels (SPARCL) study, on the executive committee of the PERFORM trial, and chairs the OPTIC registry and the TIAregistry.org. He is the funding editor-in-chief for La Lettre du Neurologue and has served on the editorial boards of many other internationally renowned journals, such as Stroke. Professor Amarenco has presented nearly 150 lectures at meetings worldwide and has published more than 200 articles in peer-reviewed journals, and 45 book chapters.

Craig Anderson is Director of the Neurological and Mental Health Division at The George Institute for International Health, Sydney, Australia. He is also professor of stroke medicine and clinical neuroscience at the University of Sydney, and a neurologist (Director of Stroke Services) at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. He is a member of several specialist societies, is an editor for the Cochrane Stroke Group, is immediate Past-President of the Stroke Society of Australasia, and Secretary-General of the Asia Pacific Stroke Association. He has published widely on the clinical management and epidemiological aspects of stroke and cardiovascular disease, and is on the steering committees for several large-scale research projects, including PROGRESS, ONTARGET, INTERACT, SAVE, and FIA.

Ruth Bonita is an emeritus professor at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, and Co-Director of International Public Health Consultants Limited (i-PHC) - a New Zealand based agency that addresses health policy in New Zealand, the Pacific, and worldwide. Between 1999 and 2004 she was Director of the Department of Surveillance in the Non-communicable Disease Cluster at the World Health Organization, Geneva, and in the office of the Assistant-Director General, Evidence for Information and Policy during 2005. During her tenure at WHO, she was involved with mapping the advancing epidemics of stroke and other chronic diseases and the major risk factors that predict them. She led the development of a simplified surveillance system, the WHO STEPwise approach to Surveillance (WHO STEPS), suitable for collection of standardised data in lowincome and middle-income countries where the gaps in information for policy are the greatest. This subsequently developed into the STEPwise approach to Prevention as countries sought to convert their growing body of information on risk factor patterns into national policy. Dr Bonita chaired the Coordinating Committee of the WHO-WSO collaboration in Stroke Surveillance from 2005 to 2007. Her current interests are supporting the development of national prevention and surveillance activities and working closely with international non-governmental organisations.

Liying Cui is a professor of neurology and is head of the neurological department at Peking Union Medical College Hospital. She is also the President of the Chinese Society of Neurology. Liying Cui trained at the Duke University Medical Center and California University in Irvine from 1992 to 1995. Her main fields of interest are clinical neurology and neurophysiology. She has published more than 140 papers and is the vice general editor of several journals, including the Chinese Journal of Neurology, Chinese Neuroimmune and Neurology, and Brain and Neurological Disorders, among others.

Rochelle Currie serves as the director and head of project management at The George Institute Centre for Research Management. She has worked in clinical research for almost 20 years and has managed large-scale international clinical trials for the past 14 years. She is currently responsible for managing 80 project managers, CRAs, and CTAs in the Institute's offices based in Sydney, Beijing, and Hyderabad.

Geoffrey Donnan is professor of neurology at the University of Melbourne, Austin Hospital, and Director of the National Stroke Research Institute in Australia. He was recently appointed as Director Designate for the Florey Neuroscience Institutes, Melbourne. He was instrumental in the formation of the World Stroke Organization and is the founding president. He has chaired the scientific committee or executive committees of a number of international meetings, including the 6th International Symposium on Thrombolysis and Acute Stroke (2000), World Stroke Congress (2000), and World Congress of Neurology (2005). He is currently Co-Chair of the Education Committee for the World Stroke Congress, Vienna (2008). Professor Donnan has published more than 400 papers in peer-reviewed journals, more than 60 book chapters, and edited four books. He serves on various journal editorial boards, including Stroke (co-section editor for Stroke Controversies), Cerebrovascular Diseases (associate editor), and The Lancet Neurology, and is editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Stroke. He was the recipient of the American Stroke Association William Feinberg Award for Excellence in Clinical Stroke Research in 2007. He has also delivered the Priscilla Kincaid Smith Oration for the Royal Australasian College of Physicians in 2007.

Dr Gao is a professor and Director of the Department of Hypertension at Ruijin Hospital Jiaotong University School of Medicine, the Vice Director of Shanghai Institute of Hypertension, and Director of Shanghai Key Laboratory of Vascular Biology in Shanghai. Dr Gao's main research interests are: (1) diagnosis and therapy of intractable hypertension, including screening for secondary hypertension; (2) the establishment and application of genetic hypertension resources (Dr Gao's team has collected many samples, including hypertensive patients, normotensive subjects, nuclear families and sib-pairs); (3) the mechanisms of vascular remodelling in hypertension, her main focus being the evaluation of vascular adventitial structure and function induced by TGFβ1 and angiotensin II in vascular injury; (4) screening and discovery of new biomarkers in vascular injury. She is also the Director of the Center for Detection of Vascular Function at Shanghai Institute of Hypertension. She is currently in receipt of research grants from the National Key Development Program on Basic Research, Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology and National Scientific Funding Category. She is widely published, her articles appearing in both national and international journals.

Dr Gao is a professor and Director of the Department of Hypertension at Ruijin Hospital Jiaotong University School of Padma Gunaratne is a consultant neurologist at the National Hospital of Sri Lanka, Colombo, Sri Lanka. She is also a stroke specialist and the consultant in-charge of the stroke unit of the hospital. She is President of the Association of Sri Lankan Neurologists and Vice President of the National Stroke Association of Sri Lanka. She is on the board of directors of the World Stroke Organization. Dr Gunaratne pioneered the establishment of the programme for thrombolytics for acute stroke in the National Hospital. She has eight publications in local and international journals and has delivered several invited lectures at international conferences. Her research interests are epidemiology of stroke with special interest in young stroke in Sri Lanka.

Graeme Hankey is a consultant neurologist and head of the stroke unit at Royal Perth Hospital, Western Australia, and clinical professor in the School of Medicine and Pharmacology, at The University of Western Australia. Since 1992, he has held a full time hospital appointment as a consultant neurologist and tries to integrate clinical practice with clinical research. His main research interests include epidemiological studies and clinical trials of treatment strategies for acute stroke and stroke prevention (such as the Perth Community Stroke Study, for which he is a co-principal investigator, and the VITAmins To Prevent Stroke [VITATOPS] trial, for which he is the principal investigator). He is a member of numerous professional associations, including the board of the World Stroke Organisation, scientific council of the American Stroke Association, and the Association of British Neurologists. Professor Hankey is the author or co-author of nine books and 20 book chapters on stroke and clinical neurology. He received the 1997 Royal Society of Medicine Medical Book Award, Advanced Author Book category, for Stroke: A Practical Guide to Management (Blackwell Scientific Publications, Oxford). He also shares his literary expertise as associate editor of Stroke, editorial consultant at The Lancet, and is a member of the editorial boards of the Cochrane Stroke Review Group, Cerebrovascular Diseases, the International Journal of Stroke, Practical Neurology, Neuroepidemiology, International Review of Thrombosis, Australian Journal of General Practice, Cerebrovascular Disease Foreign Medical Sciences, and China Journal of Stroke. Professor Hankey has contributed more than 330 articles to peer-reviewed medical journals and has given more than 350 invited presentations at international, national, and local scientific meetings. He was awarded the Western Australian Premier's prize for achievement in science in 2006 and was nominated by the Premier of Western Australia for Australian of the Year 2008.

Professor Yining Huang is currently a professor of medicine in the department of neurology at Peking University First Hospital, as well as the chairman of the department. He graduated from Guangxi Medical College in 1983, and then pursued a postgraduate degree at Peking Union Medical University, graduating in 1987. From 1990 to 1991, Professor Huang attended Salpetiere Hospital in Paris, France for advanced study, while at the same time holding a position as a resident in the department of neurology at Peking Union Medical College Hospital, where he went on to hold the post of Professor. In 2003, Professor Huang accepted his current position at Peking University First Hospital. He has been a principal investigator for a range of studies covering areas such as transient ischaemic attack, cerebral arterial stenosis, atherosclerosis, and secondary prevention of stroke. Currently, Professor Huang is principal investigator for a study investigating cilostazol for brain white matter and vascular dementia, a study that will finish in 2010. He has been widely published in international, peer-reviewed journals such as The Lancet Neurology and Neurology.

Rachel Huxley was appointed Director of the Nutrition and Lifestyle Division, The George Institute, in June 2007, and holds a conjoint associate professorship in the faculty of medicine at the University of Sydney. Her research interests specifically focus on the aetiology and burden of chronic disease in the Asia-Pacific Region, particularly the role of major lifestyle determinants of disease including obesity, diabetes, and tobacco. With assistance from colleagues in the International Obesity Task Force, she was responsible for establishing the Obesity in Asia Collaboration (OAC), a large-scale research study involving 30 collaborators from more than ten countries in the Asia-Pacific region, in 2002. She is also the lead investigator on the Asia Pacific Cohort Studies Collaboration (APCSC), a unique collaboration involving more than 650 000 individuals from 44 studies established primarily to examine the role of risk factors for cardiovascular disease in populations of the Asia-Pacific region. She has published widely (> 50 papers) in the field of cardiovascular epidemiology in several high-impact journals, including The Lancet, Journal of the American Medical Association, and the British Medical Journal. She has also written several book chapters on the aetiology of cardiovascular disease and obesity.

Subhash Kaul is a professor at and head of the department of neurology at Nizam's Institute of Medical Sciences, Hyderabad. He is also the Vice President of the Indian Stroke Association, Fellow of the American Stroke Association, Fellow of the American Academy of Neurology (Vascular Section), and Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (FRCP, Glasgow). Dr Kaul is the principal investigator of several important research projects on stroke funded by the Indian Council of Medical Research, namely the prevalence of asymptomatic carotid atherosclerosis in the Indian population and the role of chlamydia in stroke. His stroke epidemiological work in mountainous areas of Kashmir is widely cited. He is the principal investigator of many prestigious international drug and device trials aimed to improve stroke outcomes. He represented India in the Asia-Pacific Stroke Research Initiative and is a regional coordinator of the Indian Collaborative Acute Stroke Study group. He organised the first post-thrombolysis regional stroke meeting, endorsed by an international stroke society in 2002 in Hyderabad, which created much awareness about stroke among doctors. He has many publications on stroke in peer-reviewed journals. His special interests are risk factors and stroke subtypes in India, and new stroke therapies, including thrombolytic agents.

Peter Langhorne is a professor of stroke care in the academic section of geriatric medicine of the University of Glasgow, UK. His research work has focused on the effectiveness of different management strategies for stroke patients, including service delivery and stroke rehabilitation. This work has involved the use of various methodological approaches and collaboration with more than 50 colleagues from around the world. During the past 15 years he has been a coordinator and grant holder for randomised clinical trials of occupational therapy, specialist nursing, and augmented physiotherapy. Professor Langhorne has been a coordinator and grant holder for systematic reviews and metaanalyses of trials of stroke units, early supported discharge services, outpatient therapy services, intensive physiotherapy input, stroke liaison worker services, and nutritional supplementation. In addition he has served on the steering committees of trials of stroke unit care, stroke service delivery, botulinum toxin therapy, speech and language therapy, and nutritional supplementation. He has also worked within the Cochrane collaboration to encourage the development of evidence-based practice.

Leonard Li is Head of the Division of Rehabilitation Medicine at the University Department of Medicine of Tung Wah Hospital. He is also Honorary Clinical Associate Professor of the Department of Medicine of the University of Hong Kong, Adjunct Professor of the Department of Rehabilitation Sciences of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and Visiting Professor for the Department of Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine of the Sun Yat-sen University. He has been accredited in the specialties of both neurology and rehabilitation medicine. He was Past Congress President of the World Congress for Neurorehabilitation, which was held in Hong Kong in 2006, and is currently in the Management Council of the World Federation for Neurorehabilitation. He is also the current Asia and Oceania Regional Vice President of the International Society of Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine. His research interest is neurological rehabilitation, with more than 100 abstracts presented in international conferences and more than 60 publications in international peer-review journals. He is on the editorial boards of several international and Chinese medical journals, including Journal of Rehabilitation Medicine, Neurorehabilitation and Nerve Repair, International Journal of Rehabilitation Research, Chinese Journal of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, and Chinese Journal of Rehabilitation Medicine.

Professor Ling graduated from the 3rd Military Medical University and received her PhD degree under the supervision of Professor Duan Guosheng in 1989. She then undertook advanced study in France and the UK. After returning home in 1983, she established the first interventional neuroradiology centre in China, becoming the founder of this faculty.

Professor Ling is Chief Editor of Interventional Neuroradiology and Imaging of Interventional Neuroradiology (Chinese-English), the two main Chinese text books in the learning of interventional neuroradiology. She has trained over 200 doctors in her China Interventional Neuroradiology Training Center and won the 2nd State Prize of Scientific and Technological Progress for her research on classification of spinal arteriovenous malformation and combined treatment, ranking the world first in terms of patient number and results. She has written more than ten books and is editor of the Chinese Journal of Cerebrovascular Diseases.

She is the team leader of the State Key Medical Projects of the 8th, 9th, and 10th Five-year Plan and research subjects under the Health Ministry and the State Foundation of Natural Science. Professor Ling has won the State Award of Excellent Achievement in Science and Technology and has received numerous other awards, including the Youth Star of Medical Science and Technology, Young Expert with Outstanding Achievement by the Health Ministry, New Millennium Talent by the Personnel Ministry, National Model of March 8th International Women's Day, and Ten Outstanding Women of Beijing. Professor Ling is dedicated to first-line clinical work and teaching, curing a countless number of patients.

Lisheng Liu received her MD from Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China in 1954, and completed her post-doctorate research at the Hypertension Research Centre, Medical College of Alabama University in Birmingham, USA in 1981. Since 1985, she has been spearheading many cardiovascular-related trials in China, such as the Systolic Hypertension in the Elderly: Chinese trial (Syst-China), the Post-Stroke Antihypertensive Treatment Study (PATs), the INTERHEART study, and the Felodipine Event Reduction (FEVER) study. She currently serves as Vice Director of the National Center for Cardiovascular Disease, China, and is a professor of medicine at Fu Wai Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences.

Ming Liu is a professor of neurology and is Vice Director of the Department of Neurology at the West China Hospital, Sichuan University, China and is Vice Director of the Chinese Cochrane Centre and Chinese Centre of Evidence- Based Medicine. She is a member of the board of directors for the World Stroke Organization (WSO) and Vice President of the Chinese Stroke Society. She is also a standing committee member of the Chinese Neurological Society. Professor Liu is a joint associate editor for Stroke (English Edition), is editor-in-chief of Stroke (Chinese Edition), and an editorial board member of the International Journal of Stroke, the Cochrane Stroke Review Group, Practical Neurology, the Chinese Journal of Neurology, and 20 other medical journals. Her main research areas are prevention and treatment of stroke. She has published 140 papers in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of the American Medical Association, The Lancet Neurology, Stroke, Cerebrovascular Diseases, and the International Journal of Stroke.

Professor Chuanzhen Lv is currently a professor and Chairman of the Institute of Neurology, Fudan University and Department of Neurology at Hua Shan Hospital. He is also Director of the WHO collaborating centre for research and training in neurosciences. He graduated from Shanghai First Medical College in 1960 and worked as a neurologist at Hua Shan Hospital and as a lecturer at Shanghai Medical University until 1986. Professor Lv studied as a fellow for neuroimmunology at Huddinge Hospital, Karolinska Institute in Sweden in 1986 and returned as a guest professor in 1990. In 1991, he accepted the international neurosciences fellowship position at the University of Chicago for 1 year. He was promoted to the position of professor at Shanghai Medical University in 1989.

Currently, Professor Lv is the President of the Asia Pacific Conference Against Stroke, is Chief Editor of the Chinese Journal of Neurology, Past President of the Chinese Society of Neurology and is a member of the New York Academy of Sciences. In the past he has held positions such as President of the Chinese Society of Neurology and Chairman of the Shanghai Society of Neurology. He has published over 100 papers in journals, on topics such as myasthenia gravis, experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis and multiple sclerosis and neuroprotection, some of which have appeared in Molecular Immunology and Clinical Immunology.

Dr Mayer is regarded as a world leader in the field of neurological intensive care. He has published more than 250 journal articles, books, case reports, book chapters, and abstracts. He is principal investigator of the NovoSeven ICH Trial, a worldwide multicentre clinical trial evaluating ultra-early haemsotatic therapy for brain haemorrhages, and is Director of the Columbia University Subarachnoid Hemorrhage Outcomes Project, an AHA-funded study designed to identify novel risk factors for neurocognitive impairment in patients with brain aneurysms. Dr Mayer is also active in research related to therapeutic hypothermia, neurocardiac injury, status epilepticus, and cerebral blood flow monitoring. He is the recipient of many awards, including the Society of Critical Care Medicine 2003 Neuroscience Award.

Dr Mayer is a founding member of the Neurocritical Care Society, and is an associate editor of the journal Neurocritical Care. He is a co-author of several textbooks, including Therapeutic Hypothermia and Neurological and Neurosurgical Intensive Care, which is regarded as the standard text in the field. His work as a neurointensivist was also recently profiled in the book Back From the Brink, which describes how technological advances in intensive care medicine have led to dramatic improvements in outcome after brain injury.

Man Mohan Mehndiratta is a professor of neurology at GB Pant Hospital, New Delhi, India. He has a total of 25 years' experience in neurology. He is chairman of the scientific committee of the Asian Pacific Stroke Association and of the scientific and education membership committee of the Asian Oceanian Association of Neurology. He is also Honorary Secretary of the Indian Academy of Neurology. Professor Mehndiratta is the founding member of the Indian Stroke Association. In March 2007, he organised the Fourth Asia Pacific Congress Against Stroke. He has been recently elected onto the board of directors of the World Stroke Organization. He is engaged in various international trials in stroke and has a particular academic interest in paediatric stroke, subtypes of stroke, and its risk factors.

Tomomi Nakamura is Assistant Professor of Neurology at the Tokyo Women's Medical University. He is Councillor for The Japanese Society of Thrombosis and Hemostasis and has been a member of many organisations, including The Japanese Society of Neurology, The Japan Stroke Society, The Japanese Society of Internal Medicine, The Japan Academy of Neurosonology, The Japanese Society of Thrombosis and Hemostasis, and the American Heart/Stroke Association.

Martin O'Donnell is Assistant Professor and William Walsh Chair in Internal Medicine for the Department of Medicine at McMaster University. He holds a New Investigator Award from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. Stroke medicine, particularly stroke epidemiology, is the focus of both his clinical and research career. Research interests include stroke epidemiology, medical management of stroke patients, and outcome measures in elderly people. He is joint principal investigator of the INTERSTROKE study, a large international epidemiological study to determine risk factors for stroke in different regions of the world.

Dr Ramani is the senior consultant neurologist and clinical coordinator (stroke) at the National Neuroscience Institute, Singapore, and co-head of the neurorehabilitation unit. He is a member of various national and international organisations, including being a member of the executive committee of the Neurosonology Research Group at the World Federation of Neurology; an executive board member of the World Stroke Foundation; and Founding President of the Asian Acute Stroke Advisory Panel. He is also Chairman of the Stroke Disease Management Workgroup of the Singhealth-National Healthcare Group Cluster. Dr Ramani has had many articles published in regional and international journals. He is a member of the editorial boards of the Neurological Journal of Southeast Asia, Medical Progress, MIMS Neurology Guide, MIMS Asia, and Strokewatch. His research interests are in stroke epidemiology, stroke clinical trials, and neurosonology.

Il Suh is a professor of the department of preventive medicine at Yonsei University College of Medicine in Seoul, Korea. He is a board member of the Council on Epidemiology and Prevention, the International Society of Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention (formerly the World Heart Federation), and Fellow of the American Heart Association. His research interests include the epidemiology of cardiovascular diseases in Asia and developing countries. Dr Suh served as a member of the Committee on Research, Development, and Institutional Strengthening for Control of Cardiovascular Diseases in Developing Countries at the Institute of Medicine in the United States. He is also a member of the Executive Committee of the Asia Pacific Cohort Studies Collaboration (APCSC). The primary aims of the APCSC are to determine associations of major cardiovascular risk factors with stroke, coronary heart disease, and total cardiovascular disease in the Asia-Pacific region using data from 58 cohort studies with a total sample size of approximately 500 000 participants.

Dr William (Bill) Summerskill is a full-time Executive Editor at The Lancet. He has degrees in literature, medicine, and evidence-based health care (EBHC) from Princeton, London, and Oxford, respectively.

His clinical background is in primary care and as a teacher at the University of Bristol medical school. Bill has published widely on EBHC, is an advisor to the Oxford Centre for evidence-based medicine, and continues to teach regularly on this subject.

At The Lancet, he is involved in peer review, fast track, comments, writing editorials, and developing the journal's strategy. Bill coordinates the journal's collaboration with researchers and health professionals in China, and recently oversaw The Lancet Series on Health System Reform in China.

Jiguang Wang is a professor of medicine at Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine, Director of the Centre for Epidemiological Studies and Clinical Trials at Ruijin Hospital, and Vice Director of the Shanghai Institute of Hypertension. Previously he has specialised in cardiology at the Cardiovascular Institute and Fuwai Hospital of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, in Beijing, China. He also coordinated the database management and statistical analysis of the Syst-China trial. At present he is coordinating several multicentre randomised clinical trials and population-cohort studies in China. Since 1996, he has had more than 100 full-length articles published in the international literature on clinical trials and genetic studies in hypertension.

Dr Wenzhi Wang is Director of the National Office for CVD Prevention and Control, Ministry of Health, and Chief and Professor of the Department of Neuroepidemiology, Beijing Neurosurgical Institute.

Since 1981, Dr Wenzhi Wang has been engaged in research in neuroepidemiology at the Beijing Neurosurgical Institute. His main focus of research has been in the epidemiology of some neurological disorders, and in particular the effectiveness of measures applied at community level to prevent and control disorders such as stroke, epilepsy, dementia, etc. He has received several honours and awards from the Ministry of Health for research achievements in hypertension, communitybased prevention and control of stroke, and community control of epilepsy in rural China. He has had more than 30 articles published in English journals, including The Lancet Neurology, and in some Chinese medical journals. Dr Wenzhi Wang is also a member of several associations, including the Beijing Academy of Rehabilitation, the Chinese Stroke Society (Chinese Medical Association), the Chinese Association Against Epilepsy, the Beijing Association Against Hypertension, and the Beijing Association Against Cerebrovascular Disease.

Mohammad Wasay is an associate professor of neurology at Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan. He is also the director of the neurology residency training programme at Aga Khan University and has trained ten neurologists (FCPS passed). He was awarded the Distinguished Teacher Award by the Pakistan Society of Neurology (2005), the Outstanding Teacher Award by Aga Khan University (2005), and the Teachers Recognition Award by the American Academy of Neurology (2006). He has also received the Lester Bryant Award for his work on gait and leukoaraiosis, and the Victor Rivera Award for his work on St Louis encephalitis. He has published more than 60 articles in peer-reviewed medical journals and has presented his research at more than 30 international conferences. He is an editorial board member of several national medical journals and associate editor of the Pakistan Journal of Neurological Sciences. He has been an active advocate of neurological health in Pakistan and is serving as Secretary of the Pakistan Society of Neurology and as a delegate for the World Federation of Neurology. He was awarded an honorary fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians (Edin) and of the American Academy of Neurology for his contribution to teaching, research, and advocacy related to neurological care in Pakistan.

Lawrence Wong is currently the Mok Hing Yiu Professor of Medicine and Chief of Neurology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Prince of Wales Hospital. He has been the Co-Secretary of the World Stroke Organization since 2006. He serves as a board member of many professional organisations, including the Hong Kong College of Physicians, Chinese Neurology Society, and the Neurosonology Research Group of the World Federation of Neurology. He is also Chairman of the Education Committee of the Asian Oceanic Association of Neurology. His major research interests are the epidemiology of stroke in Asians, intracranial atherosclerosis, and treatment of stroke. He has published more than 180 peerreviewed original articles, edited three books, and is a member of the editorial boards of many international journals, including being an associate editor of the International Journal of Stroke.

Yangfeng Wu is Director of The George Institute China, Executive Associate Director of Peking University Clinical Research Institute, and Professor of Epidemiology at the Peking University School of Public Health. A cardiovascular expert, Professor Wu has made valuable contributions to reduce the impact of cardiovascular disease in China. He has successfully led numerous national key research projects including the 9th, 10th, and 11th China National Five-Year Plan Projects in cardiovascular disease epidemiology and prevention. He has also been actively involved, as the principal investigator or a steering committee member, in much international collaboration, including the US-PRC Collaborative Study of Cardiopulmonary Epidemiology, INTERMAP, CSSS, IDEA, REALITY, and INSPIRE ME. Professor Wu is currently a member of the WHO Visual Network Expert Committee on Global Strategies in Diet and Physical Activity and a board member for two other international academic organisations. He was invited by WHO several times to author reports and to attend meetings and training sessions on CVD prevention. He chaired the Expert Group for Chinese Practice Guidelines on Prevention and Control of Hypertension in Primary Health Care and was actively involved in the writing groups for Chinese guidelines on prevention and control of hypertension, dyslipidaemia in adults, and obesity in adults. Professor Wu's published works include more than 130 peer-reviewed articles in both Chinese and international journals. Awards and acknowledgements received include several academic awards from the Ministry Health, Ministry of Science and Technology, Chinese Medical Association, Wu Jieping Medical and Paul Johnsson Pharmaceutical Award, and Fok Ying Tung Education Foundation. Due to his ongoing contribution, he was granted "The Special Allowance Receiving Specialist" by the PRC State Council and "The Country Level Bai-Qian-Wan Experts" jointly presented by seven ministries including the Ministry of Personnel, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Finance, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Natural Science Foundation, and the China Association for Science and Technology. Professor Wu has also received many honorary titles including Honorary Professor of the University of Sydney Faculty of Medicine, Honorary Professor of Guangdong Cardiovascular Institute, and Visiting Fellow of Hong Kong College of Cardiology. He serves as an editorial committee member for one international journal and eight Chinese journals.

Xiping Xu is currently professor and director of the Center for Population Genetics, at the School of Public Health, University of Illinois at Chicago. He obtained his MD in Anhui Medical University, China, his PhD in epidemiology from the University of Tsukuba, Japan, and his MS in biostatistics from the Harvard School of Public Health, USA.

Professor Xu has research interests and experience in the following areas: (1) cross-multidisciplinary genetics and environmental epidemiology, including the role of genetic, occupational, environmental, and nutritional factors in the aetiology of complex diseases such as asthma, hypertension, stroke, cardiovascular disease, obesity, metabolic syndrome and diabetes; (2) identifying precursors of complex diseases for early diagnosis, treatment and prevention, including environmental exposures, genetic susceptibilities, gene-environmental interactions, and biomarkers, by applying state-of-the-art biostatistics, pharmacogenomics, longitudinal epidemiological studies, and clinical trials.

Professor Xu has led about 20 NIH-funded, large-scale research projects on complex diseases during the past 15 years. The international collaborations involve countries such as US, China, Lebanon, Japan and the Netherlands. He is the author of 208 original scientific articles in international peer-reviewed journals (SCI IF›800). A recent publication in The Lancet was rated as a must-read article by the Faculty of 1000 Medicine (60,000 citations).

Professor Weiwei Zhang is currently Professor of Neurology and the Chairman of the Department of Neurology at the Beijing Military Hospital.

In 1973, Professor Zhang graduated from the Third Military Medical University and took a position as a resident doctor at the Beijing Military Hospital, where she worked until 1990. She then studied at Uppsala University, Sweden for her Masters and PhD, graduating in 1997, and returned to the Beijing Military Hospital as Professor and Chairman of the Department of Neurology.

Professor Zhang has been the principal investigator of numerous foundationand government-funded studies and is the winner of more than 20 national and military Technological Advances awards. She currently serves as the chairman of the committee of the Beijing neurology branch of the Chinese Medical Association, and as the editor of journals such as the Chinese Journal of Neurology, Stroke and Nervous Diseases.

Paul Zimmet is Director of the International Diabetes Institute, Director Emeritus of the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute, and an honorary professor at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. He co-chairs the International Diabetes Federation Task Force on Epidemiology and Prevention. He designed and leads the team carrying out the "AusDiab Study" - the first national diabetes and obesity study in Australia. He is also widely recognised for his studies in Indian and Pacific Ocean populations, which have provided new insights into the genetic and environmental contribution to type 2 diabetes and obesity as well as the role of sociocultural change. Professor Zimmet has received several international awards for his research, including the 2007 International Novartis Award for accomplishments in research that have had a major impact in diabetes. He received the national award of Officer of the Order of Australia for distinguished services to medicine, nutrition, and the biotechnology industry. He has recently been appointed for a 3 year term to the new Australian Labour Government's Prevention Taskforce for Obesity, Tobacco, and Alcohol.