Adeera Levin

University of British Columbia, Providence Health Care/ St Paul’s Hospital, Vancouver, Canada

Dr Levin is a Professor of Medicine, Head, Division of Nephrology at the University of British Columbia, and Consultant nephrologist at Providence Health Care/ St Paul’s Hospital, in Vancouver Canada.

She is the Executive Director of the BC Renal Agency, which oversees the care, planning and budgets for Kidney services in the province of British Columbia

She is active in international activities across the spectrum of kidney activities, and has served as in leadership roles at the International Society of Nephrology (ISN), most recently as President (2015-17). She was one of the founding members of the Declaration of Istanbul Custodian Group (DICG), and served as one of the first Co-Chairs of that Group. She has been active in both ISN and DICG concerning advocacy for patient rights for equitable access to care, and in the prevention of exploitation of vulnerable populations.

Her major research interests include non- traditional risk factors for CVD in CKD patients and progression of CKD variability, as well as models of care. She has over 600 peer reviewed publications, and numerous book chapters. She is the Principal Investigator on a large national SPOR network grant CAN SOLVE CKD focusing on patient oriented research. She collaborates with investigators across Canada and internationally.

She has received numerous teaching and research awards, from Canadian Society of Nephrology, Kidney Foundation of Canada, British Columbia Health Research Institute and was inducted as a fellow into the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, and, for her contributions to the life of Canadians, she was awarded the highest civilian honour, The Order of Canada in 2015.

Hiddo J.L Heerspink

University Medical Center Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands

Hiddo J.L Heerspink is Professor of Clinical Trials and Personalized Medicine and a clinical trialist at the Department of Clinical Pharmacy and Pharmacology at the University Medical Center Groningen and visiting professor at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. He studied pharmacy at the University of Groningen and received his PhD from the University Medical Center Groningen.

Professor Heerspink’s research interests focus on optimizing current treatment strategies and finding new therapeutic approaches to halt the progression of renal and cardiovascular diseases in patients with chronic kidney disease with a specific focus on personalized medicine. He leads numerous clinical trials with new interventions to reduce kidney and cardiovascular complications of chronic kidney disease. His main expertise includes clinical trial design, personalized medicine as well as methodological aspects and statistical analyses of clinical trials.

Professor Heerspink has authored and co-authored over 350 peer-reviewed publications and is editorial board member of Diabetes Obesity and Metabolism and the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology. 

Peter Rossing

Steno Diabetes Center Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

Peter Rossing is a clinician researcher devoted to complications in diabetes with focus on renal and cardiovascular complications. He obtained a specialist degree in internal medicine and endocrinology 2004. Since 2007 he has been a chief physician and manager of the Steno Diabetes Center research team dedicated to the research of micro-and macrovascular complications of diabetes.

Since 2012 Professor in diabetic angiopathy at University of Copenhagen. Peter Rossing has in epidemiological studies investigated key features of the pathophysiology of the diabetic kidney at different stages. He has identified several markers for development of diabetic nephropathy; making it possible to predict the individual risk. He has been involved in several intervention studies in patients with overt diabetic nephropathy aiming at improving the prognosis.

He is coordinator of the EU FP7 project PRIORITY demonstrating that  urinary proteomics can be used to stratify prevention of renal complications in type 2 diabetes, and the Novo Nordisk Foundation grant PROTON aiming at personalising prevention of diabetic nephropathy.

He has co-authored >450 papers and his h-index is 73. He received the Minkowski prize in 2005 and the Golgi prize in 2016 both from the EASD and the E. Bierman award from ADA. Past president of the Danish Endocrine Society, and of the European Diabetic Nephropathy Study group and chairman of the Danish National Diabetes Registry