Josef Coresh, MD, PhD
Citation: Kidney News 12, 10/11
The Belding H. Scribner Award will be tendered to Josef Coresh, MD, PhD, for his career-long contributions to the practice of nephrology. Dr. Coresh is the George W. Comstock Professor of Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. He also directs the cardiovascular epidemiology training program and the George W. Comstock Center for Public Health Research and Prevention.
Established in 1995, the Belding H. Scribner Award is presented to individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the care of patients with kidney disorders or have substantially influenced the clinical practice of nephrology. Dr. Coresh has made significant contributions in patient care, research, and service to professional organizations.
His greatest contributions to the kidney realm are his epidemiologic studies in support of clinical practice guidelines for CKD definition and classification. Dr. Coresh served as vice chair for the workgroup for the 2002 National Kidney Foundation (NKF) Kidney Disease Outcome Quality Initiative (KDOQI) clinical practice guidelines, which developed the definition and classification of CKD that have been adopted internationally. He was part of the team that published the equations used for estimating kidney function globally. The methods he developed for the estimation of U.S. prevalence of CKD have become the standard for public health agencies in the United States and around the world.
For the 2009 Kidney Disease Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) 2009 conference on the definition, classification, and prognosis of CKD, he led more than 40 cohorts in the meta-analysis that led to consensus for revision of the CKD classification. This effort led to his founding of the Chronic Kidney Disease Prognosis Consortium (CKD-PC). CKD-PC now consists of more than 80 participating cohorts with data on kidney disease measures and outcomes on more than 10 million participants globally and is renowned for its fundamental contributions to our understanding of the burden of kidney disease and to improving patient care. CKD-PC research has informed clinical practice guidelines, regulatory agencies, and CKD prevention policies.
Dr. Coresh has co-authored more than 800 research articles that have been cited over 100,000 times covering a very broad range of topics. He leads the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study at Johns Hopkins, which is a cohort of 16,000 participants followed since 1988. Among other awards, he received the top scientific award of NKF.
He received a combined MD and PhD degree in epidemiology as well as a master’s in biostatistics from Johns Hopkins University, where he has spent his career.
