ISASS is pleased to announce this year’s Presidential Guest Speakers: Professor Jiří Dvořák, MD and back by popular demand, Robin R. Young, publisher of Orthopedics This Week, will update attendees on the state of the spine industry.The guest speakers will be speaking after the Presidential Address at ISASS15 on Thursday, April 16, 2015 between 8:30 am and 10:10 am.

Jiří Dvořák is Professor at the University of Zurich and Senior Consultant in Neurology at the Schulthess Spine Center in Zurich and Chief Medical Officer to FIFA. He is a senior Editor of the British Journal of Sports Medicine and deputy editor of SPINE and is widely published with 320 original articles and 48 books in different languages.

He has contributed to the Spine Research with original papers on clinical biomechanics of spine and neurophysiology, in particular establishing the Multimodal Intraoperative Monitoring as routine procedure for all demanding spine surgeries in his institution. His current research activities are focused on prevention of communicable and non-communicable diseases using the popularity of football within a larger project “Football for Health”, as well a head and brain injuries.

In 1994 he became the Chairman of F-MARC (FIFA Medical Assessment and Research Centre) and Chief Medical Officer to FIFA. He currently sits on the IOC Medical and Science Committee and is a member of the WADA Health, Medicine and Science Committee. As FIFA Chief Medical Officer he was in charge for medical organization of 6 past FIFA World Cups. Prof Dvorak was also appointed as Senior advicer to co-chairs of NCYSS (National Council of Youth Sports Safety). He has received numerous awards for his research work on the spine.

Mr. Young is the publisher of Orthopedics This Week, one of the most widely read publications among spine healthcare and industry professionals. He is also the founder of PearlDiver, a mega database of diagnoses, procedure and reimbursement codes for academic and market research professionals. In 2009 he founded Liventa Bioscience (formerly AFcell Medical), a supplier of placental allografts. Mr. Young is considered to be one of the world’s leading medical technology analysts having authored several books on the subject and more than a thousand research reports on new technologies. He speaks at numerous surgeon and scientific meetings each year. Before leaving Wall Street, he was named by The Wall Street Journal as one of the 3 top medical technology analysts in the United States. Mr. Young is also the founder and organizer of the annual New York Stem Cell Summit and in 2013 was invited to speak at the Vatican in Rome regarding the evolving use of therapeutic stem cells in medicine.