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Professor Adeera Levin (Canada)

The Jean Hamburger Award recognizes outstanding research in nephrology with a clinical emphasis. This year’s winner, Adeera Levin, is a professor of medicine, head of the Division of Nephrology at the University of British Columbia, and consultant nephrologist at Providence Health Care/St Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. She comments, “I am humbled and honored to be selected for this award. Thank you to my colleagues and the ISN for this privilege.”

Professor Levin is the executive director of the BC Renal Agency, which oversees the care, planning, and budgets for kidney services in British Columbia. She is active in international activities across the spectrum of kidney care and has served in leadership roles at the ISN as president (2015-17), chair of the ISN Research Working Group (2019-2021), and is currently the deputy chair of ISN-ACT (Advancing Clinical Trials Network). She was one of the founding members of the Declaration of Istanbul Custodian Group (DICG) and served as one of the group’s first co-chairs. Professor Levin has advocated for patient rights for equitable access to care and preventing exploitation of vulnerable populations within the ISN and the DICG.

Professor Levin’s primary research interests include non-traditional risk factors for cardiovascular diseases in people with chronic kidney disease (CKD) and the progression of CKD variability, as well as models of care. She has over 600 peer-reviewed publications and numerous book chapters. She is the principal investigator on a large national Strategy for Patient-Oriented Research network grant, CAN-SOLVE CKD, focusing on patient-oriented research. She collaborates with investigators across Canada and internationally.

She has received numerous teaching and research awards from the Canadian Society of Nephrology, the Kidney Foundation of Canada, and the British Columbia Health Research Institute. She was inducted as a fellow into the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. She was awarded the highest Canadian civilian honor, “The Order of Canada,” in 2015 for her contribution to the lives of Canadians.

Professor Motoko Yanagita (Japan)

The Bywaters Award recognizes outstanding contributions to understanding acute kidney injury (AKI). The award was established in honor of Eric Bywaters, who described crush syndrome in the 1940s.

This year’s winner, Motoko Yanagita, is a professor and chair of the Department of Nephrology at Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto, Japan. She comments, “It is my great honor and privilege to be selected as a recipient of this important award.”

Professor Yanagita is first professor and chair of the Department of Nephrology at Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto, Japan, since 2011. She received her MD and Ph.D. degrees at Kyoto University and residency training at Kyoto University Hospital. She is a physician-scientist who conducts basic and clinical research. Her basic research areas are the pathophysiology of AKI and the mechanism of AKI to CKD transition. Her current research focuses on tertiary lymphoid tissues – inflammatory microenvironments formed after AKI, and the visualization of energy dynamics during and after AKI using fluorescence resonance energy transfer-based genetically engineered mice and two-photon microscopy.

Professor Yanagita’s clinical research area is onconephrology. She published clinical practice guidelines for this area in 2022. She has been an elected member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation since 2013, an executive supervisor of the Japanese Society of Nephrology, and an executive committee member of Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes since January 2024.

Professor Michael J. Caplan (USA)

The Lillian Jean Kaplan International Prize recognizes individuals for excellence and leadership in polycystic kidney disease (PKD) clinical or basic research whose seminal scientific work has advanced PKD knowledge and treatment.

This year’s winner, Michael Caplan, is C.N.H. long professor and chair of cellular and molecular physiology and professor of cell biology at Yale University School of Medicine. He comments, “I am thrilled, honored, and deeply humbled. I am also extremely grateful to the wonderful co-workers in my own laboratory and to collaborators around the world for their tremendous help and support.”

Professor Caplan earned his undergraduate degree from Harvard in 1980 and his MD and Ph.D. degrees from Yale in 1987, working in the laboratories of James D. Jamieson and George Palade. He joined Yale’s Department of Cellular and Molecular Physiology as a faculty member in 1988.

Professor Caplan received a fellowship from the David and Lucille Packard Foundation, a National Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation, and Young Investigator Awards from the American Physiological Society and the American Society of Nephrologists.

He has delivered the American Physiological Society’s Carl W. Gottschalk Distinguished Lectureship and was elected to the American Association of Physicians. He received Yale Medical School’s Bohmfalk Prize for teaching and was selected as the first recipient of Yale University’s Award for postdoctoral mentorship.

The Caplan laboratory is working to understand the mechanisms responsible for PKD and to identify targets for new therapies.

Professor Caplan will receive his prize and deliver a scientific talk in the ‘Kaplan-PKD Session’ at WCN’24 on Monday, April 15, 2024, from 3-4 p.m. local time.