ERA Awards

Jack Wetzels studied Medicine, trained in Nephrology, and worked as a nephrologist at Radboudumc, Nijmegen, The Netherlands. He received his MD in 1980 and his PhD in 1989. He worked for 2 years as a postdoc fellow at UCHSC in Denver, USA (RW Schrier). In 2002 he was appointed Professor, and his chair committed to research in patients with glomerular diseases. He served as PI of trials in patients with membranous nephropathy, aHUS, and C3G; and PI in the EU-funded EURenOMics project. He was a member of the KDIGO guideline committee on glomerular diseases. Since 2021, he is emeritus professor, involved in clinical research and consultation of patients with glomerular diseases.

Ariela Benigni is the Scientific Secretary of the Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research and Research Coordinator of the Mario Negri Institute at Bergamo sites.

Her team identified mediators of renal damage in progressive renal diseases and therapies to halt disease progression.

She published about 355 articles, belonged to Program Committees for international nephrology meetings, received many national and international recognitions and belongs to the Top Italian Women Scientists groups.

She dedicated much of her time to the growth of young scientific investigators.

She has been a member of several editorial boards: Journal of Nephrology, Kidney International, PlosOne, and Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patents. At present, she is the Editor-in-Chief of Nephron.

Kerstin Amann is a well-known and highly appreciated renal pathologist and scientist. She has outstanding visibility both in Germany, Europe and the US and is a role model for younger scientists. At the age of 35, she was appointed Professor of Nephropathology. She took over this difficult task of contributing to first-class research in nephrology and establishing the new field of diagnostic service in renal pathology. In the following years, she managed to build up the largest centre for Nephropathology in Germany and one of the biggest in the world. Her outstanding position in the field of experimental and clinical renal research is further documented by the number of important positions which she has held i.e. founding member and vice-president research of the 2008 newly founded German Society of Nephrology (DGfN). She was a long-standing member of the board of directors of the German Institute for Hypertension Research (DIB). For many years she was co-chair and chair of the International Committee of the Renal Pathology Society (RPS).

Rosanna Gusmano (Casale Monferrato, November 10, 1928 – Genova, February 12, 2011) was a Pediatrician who developed in her life the passion for the kidney and for kidney diseases. As a Nephrologist working in a pediatric hospital, she applied her knowledge to children and actually founded in Italy the discipline of Pediatric Nephrology.

She graduated at the Medical School in Genoa, Italy in 1953 receiving Paediatrics board in 1955, obtaining teaching in the same discipline in 1970 and achieving Nephrology board in 1974.

Rosanna spent her entire medical career within the Giannina Gaslini Children’s Hospital in Genoa where she initially entered as assistant (1960-68) progressing to associate (1968-77) and finally heading the newly founded Paediatric Nephrology Department (1977-1998).  Her clinical and scientific contribution to the field was enormous. She pioneered pediatric dialysis, introducing this  practice in Italy in 1969,  cultivated kidney pathology and had a particular interest for genetics of kidney diseases. At that time, most of Italian children with renal diseases were treated in Genoa, where she founded the first pediatric renal transplant unit in Italy. Rosanna had a lifetime commitment to patient care also out her department;  she founded the “Fondo Malattie Renali del Bambino” in 1976 a charity committed to help poor-income family along children hospitalisation and care.

Rosanna was a visionary, strongly believed in research, and was fully aware  of the economical need of research. For that purpose, in 2004 she established  the “Renal Child Foundation” with the specific aim of supporting scientific research in the field of Nephrology.

Both “Fondo Malattie Renali del Bambino” and “Renal Child Foundation” are still active today and fully commited to achieve their institutional aims .

The concrete result is the existence of a renal research team at Gaslini, that includes people working in a laboratory entitled to the memory of this great master, the ‘Rosanna Gusmano Laboratory’

She leaves a heritage of 450 scientific publications and several chapters on nephrology books. Most importantly, she has left many students the concept that medicine needs heart and passion and that research is key to both scopes.

Gianmarco Ghiggeri

Prof Shaldon was born in 1931 in London and studied medicine at the University of Cambridge, Queens´ College London and the Middlesex Hospital London from 1949-56. After he had spent two years in military service as a medical specialist at a hospital in Lagos, Nigeria, he got his postgraduate training at the Hammersmith Hospital and the Royal Free Hospital, London, where he became Lecturer in Medicine in 1960 and Consultant Physician to the Renal Unit in 1965. Only one year later, in 1966, he set up the National Kidney Centre in London. In the seventies he left England and worked as visiting professor in Montpellier, France, and Stockholm, Sweden. From 1977 until receiving emeritus status he was responsible for the research section of the Department of Nephrology at the University Hospital in Nimes, France.

Prof Shaldon’s scientific work was outstanding, with over 350 peer-reviewed publications as a pioneer in the fields of (home) haemodialysis, ultrafiltration and treatment of ESRD, including ground-breaking clinical inventions. He developed an arteriovenous fistula which was simple to puncture in self-care and was also the first one to apply central vein catheters as access for dialysis, now known as the “Shaldon-catheter” (Lancet 1961) all over the world. He also was one of the first to reuse dialyzers, and even more importantly, he drew attention to the significance of pure dialysis water, of chemokines in uremia and last but not least, of the toxicity of dietary salt. He was an excellent nephrologist and the patients were always at the center of all his efforts. His dream was “to make dialysis the insulin of end stage renal disease”, meaning to enable patients to perform dialysis themselves and being less dependent on medical assistance.

Furthermore, Prof Shaldon was a great teacher and mentor bringing up and influencing many of the current generation of European and world-wide nephrologists. He also was one of the “founding fathers” of the ERA-EDTA in 1963. His vision granted the development of one of the most successful European Scientific Societies today which he inspired for many years.

Raymond Vanholder

Professor Eberhard Ritz is a great and unique person worldwide, not only as a scientist, visionary in nephrology, excellent speaker and passionate in history but also as a superb mentor for many young fellows. Since the beginning of the eighties of the XXth Century until his retirement, on an annual basis Professor Ritz invited several young colleagues mostly from Central and Eastern Europe but also form Western countries, Latin America or Asia to visit him in Heidelberg. It was for them a special opportunity to learn modern nephrology in his laboratory and to publish papers in prestigious medical journals. For many of them publications with Profesor Ritz were recognized as a very important contribution to their subsequent scientific or clinical career. Professor Ritz was one of the first who started education in nephrology on a large scale, organizing since 1976 a famous Seminars in Nephrology in Heidelberg. Later on, he organized educational courses in nephrology and arterial hypertension also in other countries, frequently with the support provided by ERA-EDTA and ISN. Without such a direct support organized by Professor Ritz, participation in these educational courses for many young nephrologists would not have been possible at that time. There is no doubt that his enormous scientific activity and the many novel concepts which Professor Ritz presented in his excellent review articles or lectures, contributed significantly to the development of contemporary nephrology. Professor Eberhard Ritz is also so famous because he supported the clinical career of many young nephrologists from almost each continent. Therefore, recipients should always be very proud, receiving the Eberhard Ritz ERA Award for young investigators!

Andrzej Wiecek