Born 1948 in Switzerland, Swiss/Canadian double Citizen, graduated and promoted Dr. med. from University of Bern in 1975.Board certified General and Orthopaedic Surgeon FMH and FRCSC. PhD 1987, Professor and Chair Division of Orthopaedic Surgery McGill University and Orthopaedic Surgeon-in-Chief, McGill University Health Center 1992 – 2002. Adjunct Professor Oncology, Department of Medicine McGill University 1997-2002. AMP INSEAD, Fontainbleau 1999, Professor and Co-Chair MEM

Research Center University of Bern and Chief of Staff Department of Orthopaedic Surgery Hirslanden-Salem Hospital,Bern Switzerland. Honorary Doctor Université Mediterrannée, Marseille. Founder and Editor-in-Chief European Spine Journal, highest rated scientific Journal in Musculoskeletal Medicine in Europe.

Dr. Robert Gunzburg was trained as an orthopaedic surgeon in Belgium and soon restricted his activities only to the degenerative spine. He benefited from a Clinical Spine Fellowship in Adelaide, Australia with Prof. Robert Fraser in ‘88-’89 and got a PhD in spine biomechanics from the Free University of Brussels in 1991. He works in private practice in both Antwerp and Brussels, Belgium. Dr R. Gunzburg is Deputy-Editor of the European Spine Journal, was President of the Spine Society of Europe in 2007-2008 and Secretary

of the International Society for the Study of the Lumbar Spine from 2006 till 2008. He has over a hundred international clinical and basic science publications to his name as well as many books and book chapters. He received several awards and grants and travels the world as invited lecturer or key-note speaker and has organised many courses. 

Michael Mayer, MD PhD is a Board certified German Orthopaedic - as well as Neurosurgeon specialized in Spinal Surgery. Dr. Mayer grew up in the Southwest of Germany. He graduated from Medical School at Johannes-Gutenberg- University in Mainz/Germany in 1981.

He started his clinical career as a research fellow at the Department of Neuropathology (1982 – 1983) with Prof. Cervos-Navarro and then completed his Neurosurgery as well as his Orthopaedic Surgery residencies with Prof. Mario Brock and Prof. Ulrich Weber at the Free University in Berlin (1983 – 1992). In 1991 he accomplished his PhD in Neurosurgery with an experiental and clinical study on endoscopic disc surgery. He started his specialization in Spine Surgery in 1987 and became Chief Staff Surgeon and Deputy Chairman of the Dept. of Orthopaedic Surgery of the Free Univ. of Berlin in 1992.

Since 1998 he is Chairman and Medical Director of the Spine Center at Schön Klinik München Harlaching which is one of the major Spine Centers in Europe ( 2000 Spine Operations/yr; > 10000 Spine Patients in outpatient clinics).

In 2007, his center has been accredited as one of 22 world-wide FIFA Medical Centers of Excellence. He is currently a Professor of Neursurgery at the Paracelsus Medical School in Salzburg/Austria. His current scientific interests are: Spine and Soccer; Microsurgery/Endoscopic Surgery in Disc Herniations in Athletes; Causes of Low Back Pain in Soccer Players; MIS; Total disc replace; CAS.

He has been President of the European Spine Society as well as of the German Spine Society (2006). He has published more than 150 papers in scientific journals and has edited / co-edited 7 books. His is member of the editorial/advisory boards of the European Spine Journal, Operative Orthopedics and Traumatology,The Asian Spine Journal, The Open Spine Journal; The Open Bone Journal. He is also Deputy Editor of The Global Spine Journal.

He has organized more than 40 International Congresses and Workshops such as Eurospine 1999 and The German Spine Congress 2006.

Wilco Peul has been a board certified neurosurgeon since 1998. He was trained in The Hague. As a general neurosurgeon with expertise in skull base surgery, he changed his interests from intracranial to complex spinal surgical procedures with a focus on the craniocervical area. As a resident, he was impressed by his godfather in clinical research, professor Reinder Braakman. He refused a PhD program in the laboratory and early in his career gave notice that he was interested in clinical research. In 2004, he

was awarded a Master of Science degree in epidemiology from the EMGO Institute, with Lex Bouter as his supervisor. This was followed in 2008 by a PhD 'cum laude' in epidemiology. Wilco Peul has been appointed chairman & professor of the Department of Neurosurgery at the University Hospital in Leiden (LUMC) and The Hague.

Since 2007 Head of the medical department of Deutsche Krankenversicherung AG (DKV AG) in Cologne and from 2005 – 2009 member of the board of Marina Salud S.A., which manages the health care in the district of Denia (Valencia /Spain). Wolfgang Reuter studies from 1981 to 1988 medicine, political sciences and sociology in Freiburg and

Paris. Then he was with Prognos AG (Basel / Cologne), the medical school of the university of Giessen, the German Medical Association (Kassenärztliche Bundesvereinigung KBV) and the pharmaceutical industry.

Scion of a well established banking family, Marcel Wormser (1929) was trained as an economist and a lawyer at the Sorbonne University, Paris, and in 1947 joined the family bank, Banque d'Escompte. In 1958 he co-founded banque Wormser Frères. From 1967 to 1997 he was Chairman & President of Banque d'Escompte and is presently Chairman emeritus of Banque d'Escompte & Wormser Frères réunis. Active in the Paris banking community, he was one of the founder members of the Matif (1985-1996), of the French government securities interbroker dealer Prominnofi (1986-1999) and of the French

Government Primary Dealers Association (1996). In 1978 he joined the Board of the Fondation Le Musée Clemenceau and was its Secretary until 2005. In 1979 he became a Member of the Société d'Economie Politique. Chairman since 2007 of the Société des Amis de Georges Clemenceau, he is on the Board of the Fondation Edouard Bonnefous and of EuroSpine Foundation.