Overview

Prof. dr. C.M. (Katia) Bilardo is Professor of Fetal Medicine at UMCG in the Netherlands and is an expert on ultrasound and invasive prenatal diagnosis. 

Caterina (Katia) M. Bilardo was born in Savigliano (Piedmont), Italy. After completing
cum laude in 1983 the Medical studies and the Specialization in Obstetrics and
Gynaecology at the University of Turin, she trained as Fellow in Prenatal Diagnosis and
Fetal Medicine (1985- 1989) at King’s College Hospital, London, where she worked
under the supervision of Prof. S. Campbell and Prof. K. N. Nicolaides.

Since 1989 she has relocated to the Netherlands where she has worked as Consultant
and Head of the Prenatal Diagnosis Department at the Academic Medical Center
Amsterdam (1992-2010). From 2010 to 2017 she has worked as Head of the Fetal
Medicine Department at the University Medical Center Groningen where, in 2011, she
has been appointed Professor in Fetal Medicine. Since October 2017 she has moved
with the same position to the Amsterdam UMC, location VU Medical Center in
Amsterdam, where she has also been appointed as Professor in Obstetrics, Gynecology
and Fetal Medicine. In the Netherlands she has been President of the Dutch Working
Party for Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology and is currently member of the
Committee Prenatal Screening of the National Health Council.

Since 2007 she is in the Editorial Board of Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology.
Since 2009 she is Board member of the International Society of Ultrasound in Obstetrics
and Gynecology (ISUOG). Between 2013-2017 she was Chair of the Education
Committee within ISUOG. And in 2018-2020 she has been President of the same
Society.

She has published over 200 peer-reviewed articles and supervised numerous PhD students.
In 2021 she was bestowed the Stuart Campbell award for Education.

Research Areas
• Doppler study of the utero-placental and fetal circulation (chief researcher
Truffle study)
• Fetal dysmorphology ( 2D and 3D studies)
• First and second trimester ultrasound screening for aneuploidies
• First trimester ultrasound
• Psychological aspects of Screening
• Fetal cardiology

Field: Obstetrics

Country: The Netherlands

Specialties: Fetal anomaly screening T1 & T2; fetal biometry and wellbeing; aneuploidies; fetal anomalies; fetal heart; fetal brain; fetal growth restriction; maternal and fetal Doppler; fetal interventional procedures; 3D & 4D ultrasound; genetics

Languages: English; Italian; French; Dutch

Dr Simon Meagher is consultant sonologist at the Perinatal department, Mercy Hospital for Women, Melbourne. He also serves as Medical Director of Monash Ultrasound for Women where he oversees a team of 50 sonologists, sonographers, genetic counsellors, phlebotomists and administrative staff in delivering a tertiary level ultrasound service across south east Melbourne. Dr Meagher has dedicated 30  years of his term as Medical Director, teaching and lecturing in obstetric and gynaecological ultrasound both locally and overseas. He has delivered over 800 lectures, across 17 countries, and 43 cities worldwide. In 2015, he was awarded ‘Sonologist of The Year’ by the Australian society of Ultrasound in medicine (ASUM) in recognition  of his teaching skills and his commitment to  hands on training within the hospital setting at the Mercy Hospital for Women and for  his commitment and contributions to ASUM.

His interest in clinical research has focussed on early pregnancy screening and diagnosis he has published over 100  articles in peer review journals, including 15 articles  in the last 3 years focusing on first trimester  pregnancy screening and diagnosis. Dr Meagher has described five original sonographic fetal markers during the first and second trimesters of pregnancy. He is now focusing his interest on aneuploidy and embryo development from  seven to 10 weeks as we approach the dawn of a new era of genetic screening via free fetal DNA analysis.  

Dr Meagher has taken on multiple leadership positions - early in his career as the Chair of the Standards of Practice Committee at ASUM, examiner and executive board member for the ASUM Diploma of diagnostic ultrasound and later as council member of ASUM. Thereafter he served as Chairman of the Victoria Obstetric Sonologists group and on several  ISUOG Sub-Committees  at the  International Society of Ultrasound in Obstetric and Gynaecological Ultrasound.

Country: Australia

Field: Obstetrics and Gynaecology

Specialties: Prenatal Diagnosis. First and Second Trimester Fetal anomaly screening. Aneuploidy screening and diagnosis. NIPT and prenatal Exome sequencing. Maternal and Fetal Doppler Ultrasound. Invasive Prenatal Procedures.  Ultrasound and Infertility. Tubal Patency Testing. 

Languages: English

Francesco D’Antonio, MD, PhD, is a professor and consultant in maternal-fetal medicine at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Chieti, Italy. Dr. D’Antonio has previously worked in the Fetal Medicine Unit at St. George's Hospital, London, UK, in the High-risk Pregnancy Unit at Catholic University of The Sacred Heart Hospital, Rome, Italy and in the University Hospital of Northern Norway, Tromsø. D’Antonio is in the Editorial Board of Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology. 

Country: Italy 

Field: Obstetrics, fetal medicine, prenatal imaging 

Specialties: Fetal brain, fetal heart, multiple pregnancies, fetal growth restriction, fetal magnetic resonance imaging, placenta accreta spectrum disorders. 

Languages: English; Italian 

Dr Anastasija Arechvo is a Senior Lecturer and Consultant in Fetal Medicine at King’s College London and King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. Additionally, she is the Lead Consultant for the Fetal Medicine Department at Queens Hospital and Luton University Hospital where she is responsible for developing and enhancing the Fetal Medicine Service. She is also a Lead of Neurosonography clinic - a comprehensive multidisciplinary fetal brain assessment service across all three hospitals.

Beyond her clinical practice, she obtained a PhD from Lund University (Sweden) focusing on pregnancy complications related to maternal ethnicity and deprivation. She also holds a Master’s degree in Genomics from Queen Mary University, London, and is pursuing a Master’s degree in Global Health at King’s College London. 

She specializes in the comprehensive care of pregnant women with high-risk pregnancies and is actively involved in research related to pregnancy complications and fetal brain development by closely working with Professor Kypros Nicolaides and his team. She is leading research groups in Fetal Neurodevelopment and Therapy. She is supervising PhD, MSc, and BSc students, and research fellows within the School and Fetal Medicine Foundation.

Additionally, as Lead for Academic Partnerships at King’s College London, she is responsible for the strategic development of collaborative partnerships, fostering strong relationships with local, national, and international institutions, and ensuring the delivery of high-quality education through partner institutions.

As Educational Lead at the Fetal Medicine Foundation, she is responsible for developing the curriculum and delivering educational content. She works closely with leading educational institutions in London and collaborates globally to organize teaching programs and sessions attended by more than 7,000 participants.

She is an active member of several scientific societies including the International Society of Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology, Fetal Brain Society and British Maternal and Fetal Medicine Society. 

Mireille Bekker completed her training in Medicine at the VU Medical Center  in Amsterdam and subsequently obtained her MD in 2002. She performed research on the pathofysiology of the increased nuchal translucency in several mouse models and human fetuses. Her research focussed on fetal cardiovascular and lymphatic development. During her research she worked at the department of Anatomy and Embryology of the Leiden University Center in Leiden and the department of obstetrics in the VU Medical Center. She was awarded her PhD in 2007. She started her training to become a gynecologist in 2005 and became a senior specialist registrar Obstetrics and Gynecology in 2011. During her clinical training years she continued to work on her research regarding the development of cardiovascular and lymphatic development together with the departments of Anatomy and Embryology of the Academic Medical Center and Immunology of the VU Medical Center. This was rewarded by the PhD thesis of Yolande de Mooij in 2011. From 2011 till 2014 she performed a fellowship Perinatology in the VU Medical Center and Radboud University Center in Nijmegen. Since june 2015 she works in the University Medical Center of Utrecht as a gynaecologist-perinatologist.

Her current research focuses on intrauterine fetal development and long term-outcomes; prenatal screening, diagnosis and therapy (ultrasound/MRI/genetic testing); genetic disorders and innovation &technologies in obstetric health care.

Ms. Dr. S.A. (Sally-Ann) Clur M.M.B.Ch., M.Sc.(Med), F.C.P.(S.A.) Paed, PhD, FESC is a pediatrician, pediatric and fetal cardiologist.

She trained as a physician, pediatrician, and pediatric cardiologist at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. She obtained her MSc in Child Health in 1997 with a thesis on the epidemiology of acute rheumatism in South Africa. She came to the Netherlands in 1999 and has since worked at the Amsterdam UMC and CAHAL where she started as an interventional pediatric cardiologist, but later left the cardiac catheterization room to delve into hereditary arrhythmias in children and fetal cardiology.

In 2010 she obtained her PhD on the subject of "Fetal Heart and Increased Nuchal Translucency: anatomical, pathophysiological, diagnostic and clinical aspects". As head of fetal cardiology at CAHAL, she is involved in the prenatal diagnosis and treatment of fetal heart defects. In addition, she does counseling of parents of the babies.

Since the introduction of the national prenatal screening program in 2007, the CAHAL has achieved one of the highest prenatal detection rates in the world. The Amsterdam UMC is recognized by the European Reference Network as a specialist treatment center for hereditary arrhythmias. It has one of the largest clinics in the Netherlands for parents and children with long QT and Brugada Syndrome. Many of these children are being treated by Dr Clur.

Valentina De Robertis is currently a consultant in Fetal Medicine at Di Venere Hospital, Bari, Italy. 
She has completed a postgraduate master’s degree in Congenital Heart Disease. 
From 2021 to 2024, she served as the President of the Italian Society of Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology (SIEOG). 
She is the President-Elect of the World Association of Perinatal Medicine (WAPM). 
Dr. De Robertis has published over 50 original papers in high-impact peer-reviewed journals and has led or been involved in numerous training courses and congresses worldwide. 

Country: Italy 
Field: Obstetrics 
Specialties: First trimester scan, fetal anomalies, fetal heart and brain, 3D/4D ultrasound 
Languages: English, Italian 

Dr Monique Haak is a fetal specialist at the Department of Obstetrics at Leiden University Medical Center, focusing on diagnostic imaging in pregnancies with fetal malformations. Her special interest is in fetal cardiac defects, fetal therapy and multiple pregnancies. She is the leader of research projects on developments in fetal echocardiography, fetal therapy and screening in pregnancy. Monique has published over 100 peer reviewed papers and has taught various ultrasonography courses. She was project leader in the founding of the National Ultrasonography Course for residents in training, which is ow an e-learning course (www.echocursus.net), and organised the first fetal echocardiography course in the Netherlands, which has now been running for 11 years.

Prof. Asma Khalil is a Professor of Fetal Medicine. She is the Obstetric Lead at the National Maternity and Perinatal Audit (NMPA). She gained her MD at the University of London in 2008.   

Prof. Asma Khalil has published more than 500 peer-reviewed papers, and many published review articles and chapters. She was awarded many research prizes, both at national and international meetings. She was awarded the 2021 FIGO Women's Awards: Recognising Female Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. Her research interests include twin pregnancy, congenital infections, fetal growth restriction and hypertensive disorders in pregnancy.  

She had a fellowship with the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE).  committed to the implementation of clinical guidelines in practice. She is the Lead author of the ISUOG guideline on the role of ultrasound in twins and congenital infections. She also led the guideline team developing the FIGO guideline on twin pregnancies. She was a member of the NICE Guideline Committee updating the Twin and Multiple Pregnancy guidance.  

Wendy Manten, is a Gynaecologist-Perinatologist at Isala  Zwolle, The Netherlands. She completed her training in Medicine and Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Utrecht and worked as a fetal medicine specialist at the University Medical Center Utrecht until 2018. Currently she works as a Gynaecologist-Perinatologist at Isala, with special expertise in prenatal diagnosis. Her special interest is in fetal brain malformations and she has taught at various ultrasonography courses. She organizes an annual fetal neurosonography course in the Netherlands, which has now been running for 15 years.

Prof. Yuval Yaron is a graduate of the Tel Aviv University Faculty of Medicine. He trained in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Tel Aviv Medical Center and was certified in 1995. He did a clinical fellowship in Reproductive Genetics at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, and received certification from the American Board of Medical Genetics in 1998. He is also board certified in Clinical Genetics by the Israeli Board. 

For over 25 years he has served as the Director of the Prenatal Genetic Diagnosis Unit at the Tel Aviv Medical Center. Prof. Yaron is a Full Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Tel Aviv University Faculty of Medicine. He is the current Chairman of the Israeli Society of Medical Genetics. He is the Founder and Chairman of Controversies in Genetics (COGEN) World Congress. He is a past board member of the International Society for Prenatal Diagnosis (ISPD) and is currently an Editorial Board member of Prenatal Diagnosis. 

In his current position he now heads the Bioinformatics Team at the Genome Center at the Tel Aviv Medical Center, focusing on the use of Exome and Genome Sequencing in prenatal diagnosis with particular interest in fetal brain anomalies. Prof Dr Yaron has authored more than 200 publications in peer-reviewed Journals and dozens of chapters in textbooks. 

Country: Israel