Meet the organisers
Sona Frankova
Sona Frankova, M.D., Ph.D., works as a physician and the deputy head for clinical hepatology at the Department of Hepatogastroenterology, at the Institute for Clinical and Experimental Medicine in Prague, Czech Republic.
She received her medicine degree in 2001 from Charles University in Prague, and in 2017, I defended her Ph.D. thesis entitled „Role of host-dependent factors in prediction of antiviral treatment response in chronic hepatitis C“. In 2024, she was appointed as an associate professor in internal medicine.
Her research interests focus on the epidemiology and the natural course of viral hepatitis, especially in specific groups of patients, e.g. solid organ transplant recipients and illicit drug users.
She has also been interested for many years in the pathophysiology of complications of liver cirrhosis, including genetic factors. She has authored and co-authored more than 50 papers in peer-reviewed medical and scientific journals, as well as book chapters in the area of viral hepatitis and complications of liver cirrhosis.
Jan Šperl
Jan Šperl graduated from the Faculty of General Medicine at Charles University in Prague in 1988.
After graduation, he joined the First Internal Medicine Clinic at Charles University in Prague, where he worked as a fellow and passed his first board examination in internal medicine in 1991. In 1995, he joined the Institute of Clinical and Experimental Medicine in Prague, the Department of Hepatogastroenterology. In 1996 and 1998, he passed his second certification exams in internal medicine and gastroenterology. In 2001, he defended his doctoral thesis on “Porphyrins in Chronic Renal Failure”. He has been teaching hepatology since 1998 in postgraduate courses organised by the Institute for Continuing Education in Healthcare and medical schools. Since 2007, he has also been teaching students at the First Faculty of Medicine in Prague. In 2018, he was appointed assistant professor in internal medicine.
His research interests focus on the epidemiology and the natural course of HCV infection, and the prognostic factors of treatment response, especially in specific groups of patients, e.g. those who receive immunosuppressive therapy, undergo an organ transplant, use drugs or have severe psychiatric comorbidity. He has also been interested for many years in the pathophysiology of complications of liver cirrhosis, including genetic factors.
He has been a member of the committee of the Czech Hepatology Society since 1994 and its scientific secretary since 2010. He is a member of the European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL) and the Chronic Liver Failure International Consortium (CLIF). His publications focus on the assessment and treatment of chronic liver failure as well as the diagnosis and treatment of chronic viral hepatitis.