Executive Committee

Professor Agnes Borge Fogo completed her medical and pathology training at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA. Her main research interests are focused on progression of chronic kidney disease and crosstalk between tubules and glomeruli, funded by the NIH and other sources.

Professor Vivekanand Jha is the Past-President of the International Society of Nephrology. He also covers the role of Executive Director at The George Institute for Global Health, India. Prof. Jha is recognized as a global expert on kidney disease and focuses on emerging public health threats globally and in India.

He currently leads research projects operating in more than 20 countries. He is particularly interested in using multi-disciplinary approaches and innovations to address the system level health and economic challenge posed to humanity by non-communicable diseases.

He has published over 320 peer reviewed papers, many in the most prestigious journal in the world and over 40 book chapters. He has held leadership positions in many organizations. He is a member of Task Forces and Scientific Advisory Committees of the Department of Science and Technology of Government of India, an Advisor to the WHO, has been on Editorial Boards of major journals and has been Section Editor of the Oxford Textbook of Clinical Nephrology.

Masaomi Nangaku was an executive councilor of the ISN (2015-2019) and is a deputy chair of the research workgroup of the ISN (2019-). He is currently the president of the Asian Pacific Society of Nephrology and Vice Dean of the University of Tokyo Graduate School of Medicine. He is Executive Supervisor of the Japanese Society of Nephrology, Vice President of the Japanese Society of Internal Medicine, and a member of Continuous Professional Development Committee of the ASN.

His scientific achievements covered both basic studies (oxygen biology) and clinical trials (anemia in CKD and diabetic kidney disease), publishing 345 original articles/ 88 reviews articles with the total citations of 13,700 and the H-index of 62. He also gave 112 invited talks at international meetings. He got numerous awards including the Oshima Award and the Bälz Award.

He also served as a member of the program committee of many scientific meetings including those of the World Congress of Nephrology (2007, 2009, 2011, 2015, 2017), ISN NEXUS-fibrosis Geneva 2010, Kidney Week of the ASN (2009, 2016), and the Asian Pacific Congress of Nephrology. He served as chair of Regional Steering Committee of ISN NEXUS-vascular damage Kyoto 2010, chair of the Scientific Program Committee of APCN 2016, chair of Steering Committee of ISN-Frontiers Tokyo 2018, and chair of Scientific Program Committee of WCN in 2019. In addition, he served as a co-organizer of the first Keystone Symposia focusing on nephrology “Unraveling the Secrets of Kidney Disease” in 2019. He has also contributed to education and advocacy. He is currently serving his second term as an associate editor of Kidney International. He played a major role in “Breakthrough Discoveries” and “Milestones in Nephrology” projects to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the ISN.

As chair of the CME committee of the APSN, he established CME courses for young nephrologists in LMIC in Asian Pacific region. These CME courses turned out to be successful, and many societies were holding the CME courses in the Asia Pacific region until the pandemic of COVID-19. As COVID-19 had a huge effect on these activities, he is trying to find a way to provide good education and communication with LMIC that have only poor internet access.

He has been serving as Associate Editor of Kidney International, an official journal of the ISN, for the two consecutive terms. To keep the level of the journal high and give important information to readers, he has been making a great contribution to the journal.

Liz Lightstone is Professor of Renal Medicine at the Centre for Inflammatory Disease, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London, and Consultant Nephrologist at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust Renal and Transplant
Centre.

After a PhD/postdoc in Immunology, and with a longstanding interest in health inequalities facing minority groups with CKD, her research now focuses on Lupus Nephritis (LN) and pregnancy in women with CKD. She pioneered steroid minimizing regimens for LN, influenced global LN trials design, developed novel approaches to assess adherence, identified biomarkers of pre-eclampsia in women with CKD and founded the UK CKD and Pregnancy
national registry. Committed to ensuring the patient voice is heard, she is global co-chair of the SONG-GD initiative which aims to define core outcomes critical to patients and healthcare professionals. She has published extensively, contributed to NICE guidance in LN and pregnancy and co-authored the Renal Association Guideline on Renal Disease and Pregnancy.

She jointly manages a renal/rheumatology lupus clinic following >400 LN patients and established and runs renal obstetric and pre-pregnancy counselling clinics; her clinical advice is sought worldwide. She has promoted academic training in nephrology through mentorship and supervision, and built capacity in EU and beyond by training visiting fellows who have gone on to establish LN and Obstetric Renal Clinics back home.

Other Contributions to National and International Kidney endeavours – Co-Chair UKKRC Glomerulonephritis Clinical Study Group; previously on Renal Association Executive & recently chaired RA group providing evidence-based advice on shielding from COVID-19 for patients with autoimmune CKD. CI/PI on LN/C3GN RCTs. Advocate for women in nephrology and now elected Council member of Women in Nephrology. Service to ISN: regular contributions to WCN; 2018 ISN WKD: as Renal Association lead organized national conference on Pregnancy & Kidney Disease; advocated for and arranged open access for key articles on women’s health & kidney disease.

Rolando Claure-Del Granado received his medical degree from Universidad del Valle School of Medicine (Cochabamba, Bolivia) in 1999. His postgraduate training included a residency in Internal Medicine and a Fellowship in Nephrology at Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Médicas y Nutrición “Salvador Zubirán” (U.N.A.M) in Mexico City, Mexico. He was a Research Fellow at the Division of Nephrology – Hypertension of the University of California San Diego, from 2009 to 2011. Following his fellowship he joined the faculty of Universidad Mayor de San Simon School of Medicine (Cochabamba, Bolivia); as a Professor of Medicine. He is a Clinical Research Investigator at the Biomedical Research Institute (IIBISMED).

He is the Head of the Division of Nephrology at Hospital Obrero No 2 – Caja Nacional de Salud (Cochabamba, Bolivia) where he has an ISN Sister Renal Center program. He has actively been involved in several activities, programs and initiatives inside ISN like the 0by25 and Kidney Care Network initiatives, the development of ISN COVID-19 resources site, the development of the ISN-ACT Clinical Trials Toolkit, etc. He is the past Chair of the ISN Young Nephrologists Committee and current member of it; he is also a member of the ISN Fellowship committee, an active member of the @ISNeducation Social Media team, and a member of the ISN Latin American Regional Board. He is also a member of the Acute Kidney Injury Committee of the Latin-American Society of Nephrology and Hypertension and past President of the Bolivian Society of Nephrology and Hypertension. Dr. Claure-Del Granado’s research interests include the epidemiology of AKI, extracorporeal therapies for AKI, study of biomarkers in AKI, mobile health, and the use of social media in education.

Dr. Claure-Del Granado has more than 70 publications between original articles, reviews, abstracts and book chapters. He has received several grants, awards and recognitions throughout his career like.

Dr Xueqing YU, Professor of Medicine, serves as the president of Guangdong Provincial People’s Hospital/Guangdong Academy of Medical Sciences. He received both MD (1984) and PhD (1996) in Sun Yat-sen University, post-doctoral training at Monash Medical Center in Australia (1996-1997), and visiting professorship at Baylor College of Medicine, USA (2002). Dr Yu has played a leading role nationally and internationally in education, patient care, and research. He has a mentorship for over 40 postgraduate students and post-doctoral fellows and leads the national kidney center in China, consisting of over 106 kidney patient beds and 32 nephrologists/researchers. With 443 publications, his research focuses on prevention and molecular mechanisms of glomerulonephritis and PD-related complications. He has received 52 research grants, numerous prizes and recognitions, including the second prize in National Advanced Science and Technology Award. Dr Yu is now serving as the President of ISPD, Executive member of Asian-Pacific Society of Nephrology and Chair of CME committee, Editor board member of Kidney International and American Journal Kidney Diseases, subject editor of Nephrology. He is very active to organize the World Kidney Day in China.

Prof. Vladimir Tesar, MD, PhD, MBA, FASN, FERA, born May 5, 1957,

Graduated form Charles University in Prague, Professor of Medicine and Head of Department of Nephrology, General University Hospital, Charles University, Prague (since 2003), 1999 – 2005 vice-dean for research and science, 1st School of Medicine, Charles University, Prague.

Member of ISN (since 1993), since 2017 vice-chair of CEE Regional Board and the Council of ISN

Member of the Council of ERA/EDTA (2011 – 2014), chair of the board of the Immunonephrology Working Group of ERA-EDTA (since 2015)

President of the Czech Society of Nephrology (1999 – 2004, 2010 – 2012 and 2016-2020)

Member of the editorial board of CJASN, Nephrology,Dialysis, Transplantation and Journal of Nephrology

Longterm interest in glomerular disease, inherited diseases of the kidney and cardiovascular complications of kidney disease, more than 400 original publications according to Pubmed, H-index 34

MBChB (Glasgow), MSc (Aberdeen), MD (Aberdeen), FRCP (London).

Having graduated from the University of Glasgow in 1993, Fergus went on to obtain a Masters in Health Services and Public Health Research and then an MD in the Cost-effectiveness of Dialysis in Europe from the University of Aberdeen. He became a Consultant Nephrologist in Bristol in 2005 and was Medical Director of the UK Renal Registry from 2013-2019.

Now based at the University of Bristol and North Bristol NHS Trust, his research interests include the epidemiology of kidney disease, particularly around equity of access to treatment, and using embedded qualitative research and routine healthcare data to improve the efficiency of clinical trials. He is chief investigator of two ongoing NIHR HTA-funded trials, Prepare for Kidney Care and the High-volume HDF vs High-flux HD Registry Trial.

He chairs the SharE-RR Steering Committee for ISN (www.theisn.org/advocacy/share-rr) and is a member of the ISN Executive Committee.

Ifeoma has been a member of the Renal Unit of Department of Medicine, College of Medicine, University of Nigeria Enugu Campus. She has affiliations with two teaching hospitals (University of Nigeria Teaching, Ituku-Ozalla, Enugu, Nigeria and Federal Teaching Hospital, Abakaliki, Nigeria. She is currently a Professor of Medicine. In addition to her fellowship of the West African College of Physicians (FWACP; 1992), she has a postgraduate diploma in Sociology (UNN; 2010) and a master’s degree in Clinical Research (University of Liverpool; 2013).

She is involved in a number of research initiatives in kidney disease and clinical trials. She was the PI for the International Society of Nephrology sponsored epidemiologic study of kidney disease. She was also co-PI for the NOAAH study, arguably, the first multi-country, multi-centre study in hypertension in Africa. She has also forayed into the arena of genetics and genomic studies. She collaborated with Prof Karl Skorecki, Dr Walter Wasser and Dr Macaulay Onuigbo in APOL1 risk variant as risk factor for kidney in South-east Nigeria. She is currently part of the H3Africa Consortium, an epic body aimed at enabling genomic research in Africa. She has several collaborations locally, nationally and internationally.

She is the PI for Health Heredity and Environment Research Group. A group involved with epidemiologic, socio-behavioural, genetic and intervention research.

She is a member of many national and international professional societies in some of which she serves in the council or executive. She has published in national and international peer-reviewed journals. She reviews manuscripts for many national and international journals. She has co-edited a book and has co-authored chapters in medical books.

Charu Malik has over 15 years of experience in the non-profit sector, the majority of which have been with professional healthcare societies.

She comes to the ISN from the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC), where she was the Vice President for Education, Research, and Special Projects.

Prior to APIC, she was the Executive Director for the World Allergy Organization, a global federation of almost 100 national and regional societies. In this capacity, she led the conceptualization, development, and execution of several innovative international partnership ventures, including disease-specific multi-partner, multi-sponsor, and multi-year research and educational initiatives.