Life/2022 membrane symposium faculty

Professor Bernard Canaud is currently an Emeritus Professor of Nephrology at the Montpellier University School of Medicine, France. He headed the Nephrology, Dialysis and Intensive Care Department for 25 years at Lapeyronie University Hospital, Montpellier, France. Main topics of interest are renal replacement therapy, uremic toxicity, vascular access, dialysis efficacy, nutrition, anemia, epidemiology of chronic kidney disease and practice patterns. He contributed to the elaboration and production of the European Best Practice Guidelines particularly on dialysis fluid purity, vascular access, dialysis adequacy, and anemia management. Prof. Canaud is currently the senior chief scientist in the Global Medical Office of Fresenius Medical Care. He acted as chief medical officer for the EMEA-LA region at Fresenius Medical Care from 2012 to 2018. He has published 400 peer-reviewed manuscripts, contributed to more than 80 textbook chapters and attended more than 1000 scientific medical meetings. Prof. Canaud has received several awards and distinctions from international nephrology societies including the prestigious Belding Scribner award from the ISHD in 2010. He also received the “Légion d’Honneur” as recognition for his lifetime of medical achievement from the French president in 2009. In March 2019, the ADC and Missouri University, USA, awarded him for his lifetime achievement in nephrology and commitment to renal replacement therapy.

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Torsten Keller is an engineer who strives to contribute to the beneficial use of engineering science and technology in medical devices and believes that all existing technical solution can always be optimized or even replaced by better ones. More than 20 years of his professional career he spent on research and development of medical membranes. He was intensively trained in this field of work by his experienced predecessors. And was able to continuously develop his skills in collaboration with international colleagues from a wide range of disciplines during numerous projects. Now, for more than ten years, he has been leading an international development team himself. He has contributed to many important product developments as well as technology developments in the fields of hemodialysis and other medical applications. Patents have been granted for most of these developments. He studied mechanical engineering at the Hamburg University of Technology and the Institute of Mechanics Grenoble, France, with a Diploma in Machine Design. While working as a research assistant at the Institute of Marine Engineering and Mechanics, Hamburg, he received a Ph.D. in engineering science for his studies on numerical fluid dynamics. Torsten has worked for Fresenius Medical Care for 25 years in St. Wendel, Germany, where he lives with his wife and two sons.

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Doctor Stefano Stuard supports the Fresenius Medical Care NephroCare medical leadership in his role as chief clinical officer for the EMEA region in the Global Medical Office. Dr. Stuards’ distinguished career includes nearly a decade with Fresenius Medical Care in clinical governance roles for the company’s EMEA and Latin American regions. He has served as a consultant / director for Nephrology and Dialysis Departments in Italian public and private hospitals. Dr. Stuard received his Ph.D. in Nephrology from the University of Bologna in Italy, and his Doctor of Medicine and surgery with a postgraduate diploma in nephrology from the University of Chieti in Italy. He is the author of more than 200 scientific publications in peer-reviewed journals and has an H-score of 28.

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Amira Abdelrasoul, PhD, P. Eng. is an Associate Professor in the Chemical and Biological Engineering Department and Division of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Saskatchewan (UofS). She is the Principal Investigator (PI) of Hemodialysis Membrane Science and Nano-technology Research Center at UofS. Dr. Abdelrasoul is a membrane technology leader in Canada, and her interdisciplinary research program focus on solving the existing hemodialysis problems. Prior joining UofS in 2017, she was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU- Formerly Ryerson University) in Ontario. Dr. Abdelarsoul received her Ph.D. degree in 2015 from TMU with the Governor General Academic Gold Medal and Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Award. She has so many notable achievements in the academic sphere. Her scholarly and research excellence has been recognized by outstanding academic honors and awards from North American institutions such as 2021 Talented Female Researcher, Norman Esch Innovation award and American Membrane Technology Award.

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Professor Peter J. Blankestijn completed his medical school and training in Internal Medicine at the Erasmus University and Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Presently, he works as a nephrologist at the Department of Nephrology and Hypertension of the University Medical Center Utrecht, the Netherlands. He was and is principal investigator of several multicenter studies, including SMASH, MASTERPLAN, CONTRAST, SYMPATHY and CONVINCE. He was active within the ERA-EDTA as a member of the council (2010-2013 and re-elected in 2017). He was chair of the Working Group on Dialysis Therapy (EuDial) from 2012 to 2017. Since 2017/2018, he is active on a national and international level in creating awareness for the interaction between climate change / environmental pollution and health / disease and initiated the green initiative within the ERA-EDTA. His main research activities include studies in humans. Subjects are: 1] hypertension, with special interest for hypertension in chronic kidney disease patients, for the sympathetic nervous system and renal denervation, 2] treatment and prevention of complications of chronic kidney disease patients, 3] hemodialysis techniques, and 4] treatment and prevention of complications of hemodialysis treatment. He is co-author of over 300 papers in peer-reviewed scientific medical journals. He is member (including chair) of multiple institutional, national and international committees and boards.

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Giuseppe Castellano is Associate Professor of Nephrology at the University of Milan, Italy. His clinical expertise comprises dialysis, acute kidney injury, inflammation and renal transplants. He received several prizes, including prestigious awards from the Italian Society of Nephrology for his Abstracts at the National Congresses 2005 and 2007. Furthermore, Prof. Castellano is member of the International Complement Society and the European Dialysis and Transplant Association. Since 2021, he has been Head of the Department of Kidney Diseases, Acute Kidney Injuries, Dialysis and Transplantation at the Ospedale Policlinico in Milan. Prof. Castellano has published over 130 papers in high impact journals that received more than 3100 citations resulting in the outstanding H-index of 32.

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Dr. Davenport graduated in medicine at the University of Cambridge. He practiced as a consultant renal physician for many years at the UCL Department of Renal Medicine the Royal Free Hospital in London. Currently, he is President of the International Society for Hemodialysis and member of the ERA-EDTA Renal Nutrition board, and former vice-chair European Dialysis board. He is Professor of Dialysis & ICU Nephrology, and director of the Dialysis & Renal Physiology centre University College London, and his research interests are centered around nutrition the clinical management of patients with AKI (Acute Kidney Injury) and patients with combined liver and kidney failure. He strongly contributed to research by authoring more than 500 publications which is reflected by a H-index of 56. He is a co-supervisor of large studies including a randomized controlled trial to determine whether bioimpedance spectroscopy-guided fluid management maintains residual kidney function in incident haemodialysis patients, and trials comparing haemodialysis and haemodiafiltration.

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Thomas Ebert is an Endocrinologist and Clinician Scientist at the Medical Department III – Endocrinology, Nephrology, Rheumatology of the University of Leipzig, Germany.He received his clinical training at the University of Leipzig, Germany. In his research projects, he investigates adipose tissue-secreted proteins as endocrine factors linking obesity with cardiometabolic diseases, including chronic kidney disease. After a short-term research stay in the group of Prof. R. C. Harris at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, US, he focused especially on diabetic kidney disease using human studies, as well as animal experiments. From 2019-2021, he has worked as a Novo Nordisk Postdoctoral Fellow at the Division of Renal Medicine in the Department of Clinical Sciences, Intervention and Technology (CLINTEC) at Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm. In the group of Peter Stenvinkel and Annika Wernerson, he investigated novel genes and proteins that are involved in development and progression of chronic kidney disease and its vascular complications. Thomas Ebert is currently Professor for Molecular pathogenesis of metabolic diseases at the University of Leipzig, Germany, where he is also positioned as a senior physician at the Division of Endocrinology.

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Muriel Grooteman is an Associate Professor at the Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Nephrology, of the Amsterdam University Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Nehterlands, and consultant nephrologist since 2001. She studied medicine at the University of Maastricht, the Netherlands (MSc and MD, 1992), and received her PhD title in 1996 with a thesis on ‘Biocompatibility of hemodialysis’. She was trained in internal medicine in NoordWest Ziekenhuisgroep in Alkmaar (formerly Medical Center Alkmaar) and VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Her research focuses on clinical effects of hemodiafiltration (member of the executive committee of the CONvective TRAnsport STudy, and the HDF/IPD pooling project), cardiovascular consequences of end stage renal failure and hemodialysis, and the effect of dialysis treatment on cardiovascular disease.

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Professor Laurent Juillard is Professor of Nephrology at the Lyon 1 University and past -head of the dialysis and nephrology department of the hospital Edouard Herriot, Hospices Civils de Lyon. Since 2012 he is elected member of the Academic Council of the Lyon 1 University and currently President of the Drugs and Medical Devices Committee of the Hospices Civils de Lyon. As a member of INSERM U1060 CARMEN research unit (Ischemia Reperfusion) Professor Juillard’s main research interests are the characterization of dialysis membrane, the role of mitochondria in renal ischemia/reperfusion, renal functional imaging, phosphorus metabolism in dialysis and the cardio-renal syndrome.

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Dr. James Kennedy holds a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Utah with an emphasis on biomaterials. He has 16 years experience developing disposable medical devices. Since 2013, he has focused on developing dialyzers and membranes that provide better patient outcomes by improving blood-dialyzer interactions. Dr. Kennedy led the engineering development team for the FX CorAL dialyzer. More recently, Dr. Kennedy has focused his investigations on the impact of protein fouling on uremic toxin removal over time and activation of the innate immune system. Currently he leads the new product development groups in Ogden, USA and St. Wendel Germany in the Dialyzer and Membrane division for Fresenius Medical care.

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Vice President of Medical Information and Education, Fresenius Medical Care Europe/Middle East/Africa. Fatih Kircelli leads the medical information and education team throughout Fresenius Medical Care’s Europe/Middle East/Africa region. His team provides medical expertise to all related departments on the company’s product portfolio and therapies. He is a nephrologist with over 60 publications in peer-reviewed journals. Fatih Kircelli received his associate professor degree in nephrology in 2012.

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Jeroen Kooman is a Professor at the Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Nephrology, where he is also positioned as a consultant nephrologist since 1998. Jeroen Kooman received his medical training at the University of Maastricht in 1990 (MSc and MD cum laude) and received his Ph.D. title in 1992. He was trained in internal medicine and nephrology in the Maxima Medical Centre (formerly St. Joseph Hospital) and the University Hospital Maastricht, the Netherlands. His main research interests comprise, among others, the pathophysiology of systemic complications related to chronic renal failure and end-stage renal disease, the pathophysiology, and consequences of alterations in fluid status and body composition in patients with renal failure, the effect of dialysis therapies on the cardiovascular and nutritional state, as well as the quality of life of patients with renal failure, physical (in)activity in patients with renal failure and the implementation of technical devices to improve physical activity levels, the value of the implementations of technological innovations in the treatment of patients with renal failure and (premature) biological aging in patients with renal disease.

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Global Chief of Medical Affairs, FMC. Dr. Kossmann trained in nephrology at the University of Washington in Seattle and practiced nephrology in Santa Fe, New Mexico for 20 years. He joined FMC in 2014, overseeing the clinical research, development and distribution of the company's products and pharmaceuticals throughout North America. He stepped into his expanded role in 2019, and the global role in 2022. He has been active in nephrology with leadership as a past president of the Renal Physicians Association.

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Peter Kotanko, MD, is research director at the Renal Research Institute (RRI), New York, USA. Before joining RRI, from 1997 to 2007 he served as vice-chair of the Department of Internal Medicine at an academic teaching hospital in Graz, Austria. Before moving to Graz in 1989, he worked from 1982-1989 at the Department of Physiology and the University Clinic of Internal Medicine, Innsbruck, Austria. From 1995-1996 he trained in nephrology at the Hammersmith Hospital, London, UK. He is an Adjunct Professor of Medicine and Nephrology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, USA, and holds a teaching appointment at the Medical University Innsbruck. He has authored and co-authored over 300 papers and book chapters. He is an awardee of the 2019 KidneyX prize for Innovations in Dialysis.

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Roos Masereeuw is full professor of Experimental Pharmacology since June 2015 and scientific director since 2018 at Utrecht Institute for Pharmaceutical Sciences, Utrecht University in The Netherlands. She is trained as pharmacologist and toxicologist and obtained her PhD at Radboud University in Nijmegen. Her research group focuses on understanding the pathways that can be pharmacologically triggered to enhance repair and regeneration processes after organ injury, in particular the kidney. For this, humanized in vitro systems are being applied that functionally mimic (patients) organs. Her group has developed unique, patented, human renal cell lines with a high predictive value for drug and waste product transport and metabolism. These cell lines are currently applied in the development of a bioartificial kidney, a kidney-on-a-chip device suitable for in vitro toxicity testing of chemical entities and drugs in development, and for studying the renal tubular secretion and reabsorption machinery.

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Katarzyna Mazur-Hofsaess, CEO of Fresenius Medical Care, Europe, Middle East and Africa since 2018. She is a physician and holds a Ph.D. from Gdansk Medical University in Poland, as well as an MBA from the Warsaw School of Economics and the University of Minnesota. In her 25 years of professional career Katarzyna has gained extensive international experience in executive general management positions. Previously she was leading the diagnostic division of Abbott in Europe and served as president EMEA at orthopedics leader Zimmer Biomet.

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Doctor Mitra is a consultant nephrologist with a clinical and academic interest in dialysis medicine and blood purification techniques. He is chief investigator of clinical trials and over the past 10 years has held competitive academic R&D grant awards of £10.2m. The research setup includes an active postdoctoral (MD / Ph.D. / MRes) research mentorship program for clinicians, nurses and scientists. His other research responsibilities include nephrology lead for NIHR Greater Manchester Clinical Research, Manchester Academic Health Science Centre (MAHSC) and Integrated Clinical Academic training program, University of Manchester, UK. His research and innovation portfolio is diverse ranging from inventive technology to innovative application and design, close to the patient application. Projects have been characterized by rapid translation, feeding into changes in clinical practice, treatments and outcomes in relatively short timescales. Dr. Mitra is the founding clinical director of two academic spinouts. His clinical and research work is recognized through 12 national and international awards. He is chair of the UK Kidney Research Consortium, HD Clinical Study Group, deputy director for NIHR Devices for Dignity Health Technology Cooperative, vice-chair EUDIAL (EDTA) and member of the National Clinical Reference Group and NICE Representative, NHS England. He is passionate about connecting innovators to create solutions that benefit patients and healthcare providers. He believes dialysis needs a global platform to engage with all those who are passionately curious about solving its challenges today.

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Professor Alberto Ortiz, MD, PhD is the head of the Department of Nephrology and Hypertension at the University Hospital and Research Institute Fundación Jiménez Díaz in Madrid. His clinical expertise comprises CKD, glomerular disease and podocyte injury, diabetic and Fabry kidney disease, polycystic kidney disease, peritoneal dialysis, and vascular disease in CKD. His many awards include the ERA-EDTA Research Award of Excellence in 2020. He has published over 700 papers that received more than 39,500 citations resulting in the outstanding H-index of 98.

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Dimitrios Stamatialis is professor of (bio)artificial organs, leader of the Advanced Organ Bioengineering and Therapeutics group and member of the management team of the TechMed center of the University of Twente in the Netherlands. He also has a part time position at the nephrology department of the Radboud University medical Centre. Prof Stamatialis graduated in 1989 from the University of Athens – Greece (Chemistry) and obtained his PhD at NRC “Demokritos” (Athens - Greece) in 1995 in the field of physical chemistry and membranes. He has long experience in research and education concerning biomaterials, biomedical membranes and (bio)artificial organs. He has been involved in numerous national and international projects leading to products and applications, some licensed to companies. He is author of more than 165 scientific publications, two books and inventor of 10 patents. He is a board member of European society for artificial organs (ESAO); of the international federation of artificial organs (IFAO); chairman of the working group on bioartificial organs of ESAO; member of the EUTox group, an ESAO working group dealing with coordination of European research on uremic toxins; section editor of the “international journal of artificial organs” and of the “artificial organs” journal (official journals of the ESAO and IFAO respectively); member of various other scientific societies and member of scientific committees of various international conferences.

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Peter Stenvinkel serves as a Full Professor and senior lecturer at the Department of the Renal Medicine Karolinska University Hospital, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden. He has published about 530 original publications and reviews and more than 30 book chapters on various aspects of inflammation, wasting, vascular calcification and metabolism in chronic kidney disease. He is interested in bio-inspired medicine and epigenetics. His Hirsch index is 82 according to PubMed. He has given more than 400 invited lectures at various international meetings and congresses in about 30 different countries. He received a prize for the best Swedish thesis in diabetology in 1994 and was a Baxter Extramural Grant awardee in 1996. He was a Karolina prize awardee in 2005 and a Vicenza prize awardee in 2009. He received the Addis Gold medal by the ISRNM for nutritional research in 2010 and was National Kidney Foundation international awardee in 2012. He received the ERA-EDTA prize for outstanding educational contribution in 2017.

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Professor Wim van Biesen is the chief clinician and chief of the Department of Internal Medicine (Renal Division) at the University Hospital Ghent, Belgium. He holds several memberships in different societies such as the editorial board of the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (cJASN), Peritoneal Dialysis International and the journal Nephrology, Dialysis and Transplantation. He is a member of the board of EuroPD and ex-chair of European Renal Best Practice. He is also co-organizer of the Oxford-Ghent summer school on renal replacement and transplantation. He is the founding-chair of the Justifiable Digital Healthcare consortium at the University Ghent, Belgium. Prof. van Biesen conducts clinical, basic and translational research in the field of nephrology, evidence-based medicine and patient participation. He published more than 380 papers and has been involved in many international collaborations.

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Dr. Vanholder published more than 900 papers, including reviews and book chapters, on adequacy of dialysis, uremic toxicity and various topics related to clinical nephrology. He serves as a member of the editorial review board of several journals and is subject editor of Nephrology Dialysis and Transplantation and Toxins. Up till autumn 2010, he has been chairman of the European Uremic Toxin Work Group (EUTox) and member of the Executive Board and treasurer of Kidney Disease Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO). Up till summer 2011 he was chairman of the European Renal Best Practice (ERBP). Up till autumn 2014, he chaired the Renal Disaster Relief Task Force (RDRTF) of the International Society of Nephrology (ISN) and participated in several international relief operations. Dr. Vanholder was founding president of the Belgian Society of Nephrology (BVN-SBN), is past president of the European Society of Artificial Organs (ESAO) and immediate past president of ERA-EDTA. He is now retired (Prof Em at Ghent University) and chair of the European Kidney Health Alliance and european Chronic Diseases Alliance.

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Christoph Wanner is Professor of Medicine and chief of the Division of Nephrology and Hypertension at the University Hospital of Würzburg, Germany. Prof. Wanner’s areas of interest are metabolic disorders and cardiovascular outcomes in patients with diabetic kidney and other rare diseases. He has served as the principal investigator of the 4D study and as a steering committee member of the EMPA-REG OUTCOME study and is the central European coordinator of the SHARP and EMPA-KIDNEY study. He has published more than 700 scientific articles. He served as editor-in-chief for the Journal of Renal Nutrition and as associate editor of the Clinical Journal of the ASN. He also served as chair of the European Renal Registry of the ERA-EDTA (2009-2015). In 2007 he received the International Distinguished Medal of the National Kidney Foundation. Prof. Wanner is an honorary member of the Polish Society of Nephrology and received a Doctor Honoris Causa from Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic, in 2012. He is currently the president of the ERA-EDTA.

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Viktoria Weber obtained her PhD and her venia docendi for Biochemistry from the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna, Austria. She is Full Professor for Medical Biochemistry at the University for Continuing Education Krems, were she leads the Department of Biomedical Research, and was head of the Christian Doppler Laboratory for Innovative Therapy Approaches in Sepsis from 2013-2019. She participated in several European projects in the field of apheresis, extracorporeal therapies, and sepsis. She is co-founder of the Austrian Society for Extracellular Vesicles, Vice President of the Austrian Association of Molecular Life Sciences and Biotech, and President of the European Society for Artificial Organs (www.esao.org), as well as Member of the Leibniz Sozietät der Wissenschaften zu Berlin. Her research focuses on the blood-biomaterial interface, the activation of blood cells during blood-material contact, as well as extracellular vesicles (EVs) and their roles in coagulation and immunomodulation, particularly in the setting of inflammation. Since 2010, Viktoria Weber has been Vice Rector for Research at the University for Continuing Education Krems. In this function, she was responsible for the development of the University´s first PhD programs, “Regenerative Medicine”, “Migration Studies”, as well as “Technology, Innovation, and Cohesive Societies”.

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