Giovanni Rossi was Head of the Lung Cell Biology Assembly and a member of the Executive Committee of the European Respiratory Society, of which he has recently been appointed Foundation Fellow. He also served as an associate editor on the editorial boards of several other respiratory, allergy and paediatric journals and has published 290 manuscripts in peer reviewed journals. His major areas of basic and clinical research have been the mechanisms involved in the pathogenesis of a variety of respiratory disorders, including the interstitial, obstructive and infectious diseases. In the latter, his work has focused mainly on the characterisation of the host–virus interaction at the lower respiratory tract level, with the aim of developing novel strategies for the prevention and treatment of these high-impact respiratory disorders for which specific therapies are often not yet available. Sebastian L. Johnston Sebastian L. Johnston is Professor of Respiratory Medicine and Allergy at the National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London (London, UK). He is Director of the MRC and Asthma UK Centre in Allergic Mechanisms of Asthma (London), is the Asthma UK Clinical Professor and is a former European Research Council Advanced Grant holder. He is also a UK National Institute of Health Research Senior Investigator. Sebastian Johnston edited Thorax from 2002 to 2010 and serves as an associate editor on the editorial boards of several other respiratory and allergy journals. He has published 380 scholarly manuscripts in peer reviewed journals and has 18 patents. Notable discoveries that have emerged from his work include establishing the viral aetiology of the majority of asthma and COPD exacerbations, discovering novel mechanisms of susceptibility to virus infection in asthma and COPD, and developing novel treatment approaches for acute exacerbations of these diseases. Sebastian Johnston is committed to capacity building for academia, industry and health services by training new basic and clinical investigators in asthma and COPD research. He also plays a significant role in public engagement and communication in the public domain. viii