Olivier Devuyst, M.D., Ph.D., graduated from UCLouvain Medical School in Brussels (Belgium) and trained at the Technion Institute (Haifa, Israel) and the Johns Hopkins Medical School (Baltimore, USA). He is Full Professor at the University of Zurich, where he co-chairs the University priority program on rare diseases, and has a joint appointment in nephrology at UCLouvain Medical School. Devuyst and his group use a multi-level approach to investigate the mechanisms of epithelial transport and the genetic architecture of kidney diseases, paving the way for novel therapeutic approaches. In parallel, they demonstrated fundamental mechanisms of osmosis and the crucial role of water channels (aquaporins) in peritoneal dialysis.

O. Devuyst is funded by national and international agencies including the EU and the NIH. He served as President and Board Member in the Belgian and Swiss societies of nephrology, coordinated several EU-funded research networks and established the Working Group on Inherited Kidney Disorders of the ERA and of the SGN. He is Associate Editor of Kidney International, Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation, and Orphanet Journal of Rare Diseases.