The ASN-American Heart Association Donald W. Seldin Young Investigator Award will be presented to Hiddo Jan L. Heerspink, PhD, who will speak on “Innovations in Clinical Trial Design and Conduct for New Therapeutic Approaches in CKD” on Friday, October 25.
Dr. Heerspink is professor of clinical trials and personalized medicine and a clinical trialist in the Department of Clinical Pharmacy and Pharmacology at the University Medical Center Groningen in The Netherlands. He is also a visiting professor at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.
Dr. Heerspink's research focuses on optimizing treatment strategies and finding new therapeutic approaches to halt the progression of chronic kidney disease (CKD) and cardiovascular disease. His main expertise includes clinical trial design, personalized medicine, and methodology and statistical analysis of clinical trials. He has successfully led and currently leads numerous clinical trials, including trials of dapagliflozin in CKD (DAPA-CKD), finerenone in nondiabetic CKD (FIND-CKD), atrasentan in patients with immunoglobulin A nephropathy (ALIGN), and a comparison of drugs in treating CKD and high proteinuria (ZENITH-CKD).
Dr. Heerspink has published more than 500 peer-reviewed publications and is an editorial board member of Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism and CJASN. He holds five patents in the areas of biomarkers and CKD. He serves as a member of various committees of international professional organizations, including ASN and the American Diabetes Association.
Among many honors, he has received the Foreign Scientist Award from the Japanese Diabetes Society, the Rising Star Award and the Camillo Golgi Prize from the European Association for the Study of Diabetes, a Young Researcher Award from the Canadian Society Nephrology, and a Top Publication Award from the Dutch Society for Clinical Pharmacology & Biopharmacy.
Dr. Heerspink studied pharmacology at the University of Groningen and received his PhD from the University Medical Center Groningen.