The Aristotle University of Thessaloniki will award an honorary doctorate to a leading international researcher in nephrology and diabetes during a ceremony scheduled for 19 March 2026 in the university's ceremony hall.
Professor Hiddo Lambers-Heerspink, born in Almelo in the Netherlands in 1979, is Professor of Clinical Trials and Personalised Medicine at the University of Groningen's Department of Clinical Pharmacy and Pharmacology and director of its research division. His work focuses on large-scale clinical trials in kidney disease and diabetes, fields in which he is widely regarded as one of the world's leading researchers.
He studied pharmacy at the University of Groningen between 1998 and 2005 and later trained as a clinical pharmacologist at the University Medical Centre Groningen. In 2008, he completed his PhD on randomised clinical trials before undertaking postdoctoral research at the George Institute for Global Health at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. Since 2018, he has also held a professorship there, overseeing innovation in clinical trials.
For more than 15 years, Lambers-Heerspink has played a central role in major international multicentre trials investigating treatments for chronic kidney disease. He has served as a principal investigator or senior committee member in numerous landmark studies, including DAPA-CKD, PROVALID, FRONTIER and ZENITH-CKD.
His work has also intersected with research networks involving Greek scientists, including nephrology researchers at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki who participate in international clinical trials in kidney disease. Research from these trials has helped shape modern therapeutic strategies for kidney disease.
His academic impact is reflected in more than 700 scientific publications and over 75,000 citations on Google Scholar. He has also supervised 30 doctoral dissertations, delivered over 200 invited lectures at international conferences, and contributed to global medical guideline committees, including a US Food and Drug Administration group that defined endpoints for nephrology clinical trials.
