Obstructive and Central Sleep Apnoea

Winfried J. Randerath is a specialist in internal medicine, pneumology, allergology, sleep medicine, environmental medicine and palliative medicine.

Following his medical studies in Düsseldorf (Germany) in 1987, Winfried established his practice in respiratory and sleep medicine. He currently serves as the Medical Director of the Clinic for Pneumology, Allergology, Sleep Medicine and Respiratory Care at Bethanien Hospital (Solingen, Germany) and as the Director of the Institute of Pneumology at the University of Cologne (Cologne, Germany).

Winfried's professional life includes editorial responsibilities. He is Editor-in-Chief of Sleep Medicine and Sleep Medicine: X, and is an Associate Editor for Respiration and ERJ Open Research.

Winfried has been involved with a number of different scientific societies during his career, serving in different roles. He is currently the Guidelines Director for the European Respiratory Society (ERS) (2024–2027) and a board member of the European Sleep Research Society (ESRS). He previously served as Secretary General of the German Respiratory Society (DGP) (2018–2024), has held board positions within the German Society for Sleep Research and Sleep Medicine (DGSM), chaired the Northern Westphalian Society of Sleep Medicine (2009–2020), and has chaired several major national congresses for both the DGP and the DGSM.

Within the ERS, Winfried served as Head of the Sleep Disordered Breathing Assembly in 2021–2023 and as Chair of the Sleep and Control of Breathing Group in 2015–2018. He has chaired numerous ERS task forces, including those focused on continuous positive airway pressure therapies, adaptive servo ventilation, non-continuous positive airway pressure therapies, sleep and stroke, and central breathing disturbances. He chaired the task force “ERS technical standards for using type III devices (limited channel studies) in the diagnosis of sleep disordered breathing in adults and children,” and served as a member of the HERMES examination committee. Winfried also contributed to the 2025 American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) task force on “Treatment of central sleep apnea in adults”.

Jean-Louis Pépin is Professor of Clinical Physiology at University Grenoble Alpes, Saint-Martin-d'Hères, France. He directs a translational research team (INSERM U1300), which examines the cardiometabolic consequences of intermittent hypoxia at molecular and cellular levels and in rodent models exposed to intermittent hypoxia.

Jean-Louis has led clinical trials and real-world evidence observational studies, which evaluated continuous positive airway pressure and lifestyle interventions, with specific focus on new management pathways, including digital medicine and artificial intelligence.

Sophia E. Schiza has been a professor of respiratory and sleep medicine since 2020, and is Head of the Sleep Disorders Unit at the University of Crete's School of Medicine (Crete, Greece).

During her career, Sophia has authored >170 peer-reviewed articles (H-index 39, >3800 citations) on her main research interests: sleep disordered breathing, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and obstructive sleep apnoea, COPD overlap syndrome, the cardiovascular consequences of obstructive sleep apnoea, sex differences in obstructive sleep apnoea, central sleep apnoea, pleural infusions, and COPD. She is one of the Editors of the ERS Handbook of Respiratory Sleep Medicine (2nd edition, published in 2023), has provided chapters for the ERS Monograph on Pulmonary Hypertension (published 2025) and the ERS Handbook of Respiratory Medicine (4th edition, published in 2025), and is a Field Editor of Sleep Medicine.

Sophia's role in the generation of guidelines and task force statements within the European Respiratory Society (ERS) and in collaboration with the European Sleep Research Society (ESRS) and the America Thoracic Society (ATS) continues to grow. Recently, she co-chaired task forces on sex differences in obstructive sleep apnoea, and on the development of a European registry for home positive airway pressure/noninvasive ventilation in patients with sleep breathing disorders and neuromuscular diseases, which resulted in an ERS-funded Clinical Research Collaboration that started work in March 2024. Sophia was also part of two European Union-funded research projects: “Digital literacy enables up-to-date sleep medicine in inclusive healthcare (eSleep-dHealth)”, which started work in 2023 and ran for 3 years; and “Sleep Revolution”, which started work in 2021 and ran for 5 years.

At a national and European level, Sophia develops educational activities, university-based PhD programmes and fellowships for sleep, with a focus on sleep breathing disorders. In 2008–2014, she served as coordinator of the Sleep Breathing Disorders Group of the Hellenic Respiratory Society (HTS), and in 2016–2022, she served as Chair of the Educational Committee of the Hellenic Sleep Research Society (HSRS).

At a European level, Sophia is highly involved in the development of numerous educational activities for the Sleep Disordered Breathing Assembly of the ERS, in collaboration with the ESRS and the ATS. These activities were acknowledged when she received the ERS Teaching Award twice, in 2019 and in 2024. In 2020, she became a Fellow of ERS.

Lastly, Sophia continues to supervise numerous masters, PhDs and research projects in all fields of respiratory medicine. The Sleep Disorders Centre, at which she is Head, hosts fellowship recipients from Greece, the Balkans and other European countries.