Congress Chair Award 2015

Peter Sterk photograph

Professor Peter Sterk is a clinical physiologist with a life-long interest in respiratory health and disease. Professor Sterk co-ordinates the U-BIOPRED project aimed at improving our knowledge of severe asthma by identifying the different types of severe asthma using comprehensive clinical characterisation plus biological fingerprints of the disease.

 

Professor Sterk's research on integrating biomarkers in clinical diagnostics, phenotyping and management, is based on novel developments in capturing complex biology in samples obtained from clinically well-characterised patients. This research required a 'systems' approach where quantitative, high-throughput, multi-scale assessments are used to phenotype individual patients. This approach was embedded in the public-private project U BIOPRED, partially funded by the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI).

Pieter Hiemstra, ERS Congress Chair, said: "Peter Sterk has contributed widely to the Society over the course of his career in various roles, including by acting as Chief editor of the ERJ, as ERS Congress Chair and as Assembly Head. We value his skills at stimulating young researchers and bridging clinical and basic science. His work on fingerprinting severe asthma could help patients significantly by advancing the aim of personalised asthma treatment."

Professor Sterk's group is currently working on validating the use of breathomics in the diagnosis and phenotyping of different areas of lung health with the aim of making this assessment 'point-of-care-proof'. This could lead to the implementation of integrative, molecular physiology in personalised respiratory medicine.

Professor Sterk will be presented with the ERS Congress Chair Award during the Opening Ceremony, on Saturday 26 September, 2015 from 17:45 in the Auditorium.

If you are interested in any of these topics, join Professor Sterk at the following sessions: