Kai-Uwe Eckardt is Head of the Department of Nephrology and Medical Intensive Care at the Charité in Berlin, Germany. He attained an MD from the University of Münster in 1985 and obtained residency and fellowship training in pathology, physiology, internal medicine and nephrology at the Universities of Münster, Hannover, Zurich, Oxford and Berlin. From 2004 to 2017 he was Chair of Nephrology and Hypertension at the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg, where he also served as Vice Dean for Research and International Afffairs from 2009-2016.

Dr. Eckardt´s major scientific interests lie in the molecular mechanisms and relevance of oxygen sensing and the development of acute and chronic renal injury. He was chairman of a collaborative research centre on kidney injury, founded by the German Research Foundation and is principal investigator of the German Chronic Kidney Disease (GCKD) study. Dr. Eckardt is a past council member of the ERA-EDTA and current member of the Executive Council of the ISN. He has served as program chair for the World Congress of Nephrology in 2009 and 2017. He was also a founding Executive Committee member and co-chair of Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO).

Ton Rabelink is Professor and Chair of Medicine, and Head of
the Division of Nephrology and the Einthoven Laboratory for
Experimental Vascular Medicine at the Leiden University Medical
Center, Leiden, Netherlands. He received his MD and PhD degrees
from Utrecht University, Netherlands and completed fellowships in
internal medicine and nephrology. His main research interests are vascular
biology and its implications for renal function, organ transplantation
and the development of cardiovascular disease in patients with
renal disease, as well as the use of stem cells to restore kidney function.