Dr. Blum qualified from the University of Göttingen, Germany. He was awarded a Doctor title for his dissertation in 2001 on the prognostic impact of the tyrosine kinase receptor c-Met in breast cancer. After clinical training in Lüneburg and Berlin he was appointed Consultant Physician at the Lungenklinik Heckeshorn within the Helios Klinikum Emil von Behring, Berlin in 2008. Among other fields in respiratory medicine, he is specialized in diagnostics and therapy of thoracic malignancies. He is a steering board member of the German national lung cancer guideline group as well as the clinical lung cancer lead within the Association of German Tumor Centres (the network of the German cancer registries). He is the current Head of the Thoracic Oncology Assembly within the European Respiratory Society (ERS) and member of the Executive Committee of ERS – the highest decision making body in ERS. He has chaired co-chaired several ERS Task Forces within the scope of quality improvement in lung cancer care in Europe. He is current co-chair of the ERS Clinical Research Collaboration PERSPECTIVE and clinical lung cancer co-lead within the EU IMI Consortium OPTIMA. His main clinical research interest is the management of patients with lung cancer and other thoracic malignancies. He has published on various diagnostic and therapeutic aspects as well as quality of care within this field.