Christian-Alexander Behrendt (M.D. | Doctor of Medicine, Consultant Vascular Surgeon) is fellow member of the European Society for Vascular Surgery (ESVS) and elected international member of the Society for Vascular Surgery (SVS). Christian is chair (2020-2023) of the VASCUNET committee of the ESVS. He is head of the GermanVasc research group at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE) and works as lead of the peripheral bypass section at the Department of Vascular Medicine, Hamburg, Germany. He is expert in real-world evidence using registry and health insurance claims data. Between 2017 and 2020, he published 18 peer-reviewed original contributions in highly-cited scientific journals. He currently serves as member of the editorial boards of the European Journal of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery (EJVES) and VASA European Journal of Vascular Medicine. He is associated editor of the section for peripheral arterial disease of the German journal Gefässchirurgie.

Christian is founding member of the International Consortium of Vascular Registries (ICVR) and the Medical Device Epidemiology Network (MDEpiNet) and served as project lead of numerous registry studies in Germany (PSI-Registry, EQS-Registry, L-ACMAG).

He is the principal investigator and lead of the RABATT consortium and the IDOMENEO consortium (founded by the German Federal Joint Committee). As Chair of the MDEpiNet German Chapter, he is currently developing a multidisciplinary network of cardiovascular specialists and a data privacy compliant device registry in Germany (www.mdepinet.de).

As a speaker for the department of vascular medicine and member of the research council of the Hamburg City Health Study (HCHS), he is also coordinating several vascular projects within this large regional health care study (Population-based screening on AAA in Germany, Sphingosin-1-Phosphat as predictor of AAA or PAD).

Eike Sebastian Debus is Professor for Surgery and Chair of the Department of Vascular Medicine, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Germany.  Sebastian Debus is the current Secretary General of the European Society for Vascular Surgery (ESVS). He was President of the German Vascular Society 2013/2014, chairs the Northern German Society of Surgery since 2013 and the Northern German Society for Vascular Medicine since 2017. He is co-founder of the German vascular registry program (GermanVasc) and is engaged in various projects of the European Society for Vascular Surgery, i.e. the VASCUNET initiative, board of directors of the European journal of vascular and endovascular surgery and member of the ESVS guidelines committee.

Henrik Christian Rieß (MD | Dr.) is scientific member of the GermanVasc working group and coworker at the University Heart Center Hamburg at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf.  He is currently coordinating clinical trials on fluorescent imaging in peripheral artery disease. He is also leading registry projects on cardiac bypass surgery and gender differences in vascular medicine.

Thea Schwaneberg (M.
Sc.) is researcher in the GermanVasc working group.  She completed her master programme in biostatistics and is currently working on her PhD ("Utilization of Claims Data in Vascular Research and Quality Improvement").

Frederik Peters (Dr., M. Sc.) is data analyst in the GermanVasc team.  He is currently studying peripheral artery disease emplyoing health insurance claims data.  During his previous appointments at Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, the Unversity of Rostock and the Erasmus Medical Center Rotterdam, he worked on the interplay of health systems and morbidity and mortality of chronic diseases. His PhD thesis “ Deviating Trends in Dutch Life Expectancy Explanation and Projection“ focussed on the consequences of the transition to a fee-for-service scheme in the Netherlands.  He is a trained Epidemiologist and Medical Demographer.

Jenny Kuchenbecker (M.
Sc.) is researcher in the GermanVasc working group.  She completed her master programme in applied statistical sciences and economic science.