Dr. Nadir Yacine Benmebarek is an independent consultant neurosurgeon based in Algiers, Algeria. He graduated from the Faculty of Medicine of Algiers and completed his neurosurgical specialization at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium. His practice focuses on the diagnosis and surgical management of brain and spine disorders, with a strong emphasis on minimally invasive spine surgery.

For over 12 years, Dr. Benmebarek has specialized in endoscopic spine techniques, beginning with training in the Destandau Endospine method under Dr. Jean Destandau in Bordeaux, France. This experience sparked his dedication to procedures that reduce tissue damage, shorten recovery times, and enhance patient outcomes.

More recently, Dr. Benmebarek has incorporated Unilateral Biportal Endoscopy (UBE) into his practice—a modern, minimally invasive technique that offers enhanced visualization and flexibility for treating spinal conditions. His commitment to staying at the forefront of neurosurgical innovation reflects his dedication to improving patient outcomes and advancing the field.

Dr. Benmebarek continues to blend technical expertise with compassionate, patient-centered care in every aspect of his work.

Dr. Brian Kwon is a Professor in the Department of Orthopaedics at UBC, the Canada Research Chair in Spinal Cord Injury, and holds the Dvorak Chair in Spine Trauma.   He is an attending spine surgeon at Vancouver General Hospital, and serves as the Director of Research for the Vancouver Spine Program.   As a surgeon-scientist and the past Chair of the AO Spine Knowledge Forum in Spinal Cord Injury, he is particularly interested in the bi-directional process of translational research for spinal cord injury.  He leads a research program focused on translation at the International Collaboration on Repair Discoveries (ICORD), which he also became Director of in July 2024.   He has worked extensively on establishing biomarkers of human SCI to understand the biology of human injury and to better stratify injury severity and improve the prediction of neurologic outcome.

Dr. Jesús Lafuente, is the head of Neurosurgery service at the Hospital Universitari Sagrat Cor in Barcelona, Spain and the Director of the Spine unit at Hospital del Mar.

Dr. Lafuente has extensive training and experience in all aspects of Neurosurgery in the UK and Spain. He was an International consultant for the Medtronic company for 4 years, to assist and support surgeons with the Bryan disc implantation technique (first effective cervical arthroplas-ty).

Dr. Lafuente’s special interests include Skull base neurosurgery, Chiari and Syringomyelia, Spinal deformity, Spinal tumors, Degenerative disease and performing surgeries in developing countries.

Mr Darren Lui is a Fellowship Trained Deformity and Complex Spinal Surgeon. He primarily now works at the Mater Private Network Dublin Hospital in Ireland.

Mr Lui has published MIS anterior scoliosis surgery including non fusion techniques in VBT. He is involved in their Multicentre Prospective Trial for VBT currently. He is involved in a multicenter retropsective study looking at Bipolar Growing Rods with Oxford and Birmingham. He has one of the largest series of patients using 3D printed bespoke jigs for paediatric scoliosis surgery and helped pioneer the use of BoneMRI and 3D models.

Mr Lui has a specialist interest in metastatic spinal oncology, especially the treatment of oligo-metastases of the spine with the treatment of spinal tumours by combining carbon fibre instrumentation, radiofrequency ablation and stereotactic ablative radiotherapy (SBRT). He still utilises Tomita technique where appropriate.

Dr Obeid is the director of an active research team with several publications in basic research and clini-cal spine pathologies, with More than 270 pubmed referenced publications with a value of more than 40 H-Index. He is coauthor on many textbooks of pediatric and adult spine. He participates as invited faculty to many national and international meetings especially for spinal deformity, osteotomy and spinal alignment.

Dr Obeid is an active member of multiple national and international spinal and spinal deformity socie-ties (SFCR, SRS, Eurospine). He is also an active member in multi-national deformity study groups lead-ing in the spinal deformity domain (ISSG, ESSG). He is also chairing and co-chairing a multitude of spi-nal courses annually. He is serving now as a chair of meeting council and member of the executive committee of Eurospine.

Jwo-Luen Pao, MD, is a distinguished orthopedic surgeon specializing in minimally invasive spine surgery. He currently serves as the Chair of the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at Far Eastern Memorial Hospital (FEMH) in New Taipei, Taiwan, and is an Assistant Professor recognized by the Ministry of Education of Taiwan, the Republic of China.