OUR PLENARY SPEAKERS

We are thrilled to announce the exceptional lineup of keynote speakers who will take center stage at the ESPN Annual Meeting 2024!

Hans-Joachim Anders

Hans-Joachim Anders received his clinical training at the University of Munich and became a board-certified internist, nephrologist, rheumatologist, and immunologist. He directs the Division of Nephrology at the Inner City Campus of the University of Munich. As a professor of nephrology at the University of Munich, he teaches all aspects of clinical nephrology and coordinates a Medical Faculty program that funds 1 year of full time basic research for 50 medical students each year. His own research lab focusses on immune mechanisms of kidney injury and repair as well as preclinical drug testing. He has published more than 400 original articles, reviews, and book chapters and received several national and international awards. He is the current Editor-in-Chief of Nephrol Dial Transplantation.

Tobias B. Huber

Tobias B. Huber is Chair of the Center of Internal Medicine, Director of the III. Department of Medicine (Nephrology, Rheumatology, Endocrinology and Transplantation) and Director of the Hamburg Center for Kidney Health at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE). Together with his team he is internationally recognized for discovering signalling pathways relevant for kidney development, filtration, maintenance and disease. He published over 285 articles, is one of the worldwide most cited podocyte researches, received numerous national and international recognitions including the Franz-Volhard award of the German Society of Nephrology (2010), the Donald W. Seldin Young Investigator Award of the American Society of Nephrology (2012), the Marilyn Farquhar lifetime research achievement award for glomerular biology of the International Podocyte Conference (2023), and the award for outstanding basic science contributions to nephrology of the European Renal Association (2023). He is elected member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation, the Association of American Physicians and the National Academy of Sciences – Leopoldina-. A major focus of his career has been to mentor, educate and facilitate careers of young talents and clinician-scientists. Recently he was elected as inaugural president of the newly formed International Society for Glomerular Disease.

Nine Knoers

Since 2018, Professor Nine Knoers is the chair of the Department of Genetics at the University Medical Centre Groningen, The Netherlands. She received her M.D. (1986) and Ph.D. (cum laude, 1990) from the Catholic University Nijmegen, The Netherlands. She was trained and certified as Clinical Geneticist at the Radboud University Medical Centre Nijmegen. From 2011 until 2018, she was chair of the Department of Genetics at the University Medical Centre Utrecht, The Netherlands. She was chair of the Dutch Society of Clinical Genetics (2007-2015) and Member of the Dutch Health Council (2008-2018). In 2017, she became Honorary member of the Dutch Society of Clinical Genetics, as recognition of major contributions to Clinical Genetics and to professionalization of the Society. Her major research effort focuses on the identification of genes for inherited kidney disorders and on their pathophysiology to find clues for treatment. Over the past years, her team has substantially contributed to the elucidation and characterization of genes involved in hereditary kidney diseases, among which genes for nephrogenic diabetes insipidus, for renal hypomagnesemia, for syndromic nephronophthisis, and for congenital abnormalities of the kidney and urinary tract (CAKUT). Nine has an extensive (inter)national network, is member of European Consortia on genetic renal disorders (EURenOmics, ERKNet) and coordinated the Dutch/UK Scientific Consortium on kidney ciliopathies “Kouncil”. She was awarded the Donald Seldin Lectureship of the International Society of Nephrology (2013), as a recognition of a major contribution in basic science related to nephrology and the Catharijne oeuvre award 2016 (Catharijne foundation) for groundbreaking contributions to nephrogenetics. She has published over 290 scientific papers, including papers in Nature Genetics, Science, Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine and 28 Chapters in books. In the last 10 years, she delivered >250 invited lectures. With more than 18,000 citations to date, her current H-index is 72 (Scopus Februari 2024). She has successfully supervised 28 PhD students, many of whom have continued their careers in academics.

Núria Montserrat

Dr. Núria Montserrat is a research ICREA (Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies), professor and leader of the Pluripotency for Organ Regeneration group at the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) since 2019. She is internationally renowned for her pioneering work and has spearheaded projects that have significantly contributed to advancing knowledge in organ regeneration, with potential applications in personalized medicine. Since August 12, 2024, Dr. Nuria Montserrat has been recognized as Ministry of Research and Universities in the government of Catalunya. Dr. Núria Montserrat became interested in organ regeneration and stem cells during her masters and PhD training. She was a postdoctoral fellow at the Fundaçao para a Ciência e Tecnología (Portugal) (2006), postdoctoral researcher at the Hospital of Santa Creu i Sant Pau (Barcelona, 2007). In 2008, she joined the Center of Regenerative Medicine of Barcelona (CMRB) as a Juan de la Cierva fellow, under the direction of Dr. Izpisúa Belmonte. In 2010, she co-authored how to reprogram cord blood stem cells for the first time (Nature Protocols, 2010). Then she co-authored the first work deriving iPSCs with new factors (Cell Stem Cell, 2013). She also collaborated on projects aimed at characterizing the genomic integrity of human iPSCs as well as their differentiation towards different lineages for applications in human disease modeling (Stem Cells, 2011; Nature, 2012; Nature, 2012, Nature Communications, 2014). She has first co-authored how the reactivation of endogenous pathways can be artificially reactivated and promote heart regeneration in mammals (Cell Stem Cell, 2014). Furthermore, she became a Junior group leader at the IBEC in 2014. Her contributions led to the derivation, for the first time, of cardiac grafts from human pluripotent stem cells and decellularized cardiac myocardium (Biomaterials, 2016), the derivation of renal analogues with 3D bioprinting (Materials Today, 2017) and vascularized kidney organoids from hPSCs (Nature Materials, 2019). She co-led the application of kidney organoid technology to model SARS-CoV-2 infections (Cell, 2020) identifying a therapeutic compound that is currently under clinical trial in COVID19 patients (The Lancet Respiratory Medicine, 2020; EMBO Molecular Medicine, 2020). During her career, Dr. Núria Montserrat has received several awards, such as the National Research Award for Young Talent in Catalunya and the EMBO Young Investigator Prize. Their Cell paper was recognized as the Best biomedical research publication 2020 (Constantes y Vitales Prize). Her commitment to scientific dissemination and communication has allowed her to participate in more than 300 outreach activities to promote research activities to the public, with a particular focus on young girls and women in science. She was selected as Commissioner of the first City and Science Biennial of Barcelona in 2019 and 2021. Dr. Núria Montserrat has been a member of the Council for Research and Innovation of Catalonia (CORICAT), coordinator of the Biobanks and Biomodels platform at the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII), and deputy director of translational research at IBEC.

Simone Sanna-Cherchi

Dr. Simone Sanna-Cherchi is an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Nephrology at Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York, United States. He performs groundbreaking research on genetic kidney diseases, such as congenital abnormalities of the kidneys and urinary tract and nephrotic syndrome, resulted in publications in scientific journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine, Nature Genetics, Nature Communications, the Journal of Clinical Investigation, the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, Kidney International, and others.

Dr. Sanna-Cherchi has significant experience in leading large multi-institutional and international studies that bring together investigators with different background, interest, and nationality to solve the genetic basis of difficult, clinically relevant, and often neglected diseases. His work has been continuously supported by funding from multiple agencies including the National Institute of Health (NIH), the Department of Defense (DoD), the American Society of Nephrology (ASN), the American Heart Association (AHA), the American Urology Association (AUA) and many others. Among his many honors and functions, he is an elected member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation (ASCI), a founding member of the International Society of Glomerular Disease (ISGD), and he is an Associate Editor for the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN) and an Associate Editor for Glomerular Diseases (GDZ).