Meet the organisers
André Boonstra
His research group is devoted to better understand the factors that determine viral persistence, disease progression and treatment outcome in patients with chronic hepatitis B, including the evaluation of novel antiviral compounds in phase I/II trials. Besides this, a major effort of his work focusses on novel biomarkers to predict the development of fibrosis and liver cancer in patients at risk. These translational studies make extensive use of state-of-the-art immunological methods as well as innovative systems biology approaches, such as proteomics and single cell RNA sequencing. Dr. Boonstra’s activities are characterized by active participation in numerous national and international consortia. He is also initiator and coordinator of the EU-funded Horizon2020 grant ESCALON (www.escalon.eu) aimed at improving early detection and diagnosis of liver cancer.
Shilpa Chokshi
Professor Shilpa Chokshi PhD FRSB is Professor of Experimental Hepatology and Director of the Centre of Environmental Hepatology at the University of Plymouth (UoP), and Co-Chair of the Joint Clinical Academic Advisory Board representing UoP and University Hospital Plymouth.
She also holds an Honorary Professorship at the Roger Williams Institute of Liver Studies (RW-ILS), King’s College London. Her research focuses on establishing Environmental Hepatology as a pioneering specialty, investigating how environmental exposures, particularly microplastics and nanoplastics, drive liver injury, inflammation and fibrosis using advanced human-relevant experimental models. She previously served as Acting Director and Chief Scientific Officer at the Roger Williams Institute of Hepatology.
Robert de Knegt
Dr. Robert de Knegt is a gastroenterologist/hepatologist at the Erasmus MC University Medical Center, Rotterdam, the Netherlands. His main focus is clinical hepatology and abdominal ultrasound.
His research focusses on viral hepatitis C and MASLD. In addition, he introduced abdominal ultrasound for gastroenterologists/hepatologists in the Netherlands. After having been the director of the clinical training program for residents, he has increasingly devoted himself to teaching : the training of residents as well as colleague-gastroenterologists/hepatologists in particular in abdominal ultrasound (point of care liver as well as gastrointestinal ultrasound). Within the Netherlands he is developing special educational programs for abdominal ultrasound in gastroenterology and hepatology, and he teaches for different scientific societies (like EASL, EFSUMB, AEKN and AASLD).
Krista Rombouts
Krista Rombouts, PhD, Professor and Interim Head of Department – Institute for Liver and Digestive Health – University College London (UCL), UK.
Current research interests are extracellular matrix and organ fibrogenesis in diseases: Hepatic Stellate Cell behaviour; liver cancer cell – fibrotic stroma cell interaction; liver metastasis; MASH – MASLD; fibrosis development in Small Intestinal Neuroendocrine tumours (SI-NET) and neuroendocrine carcinomas (NECs); and innovative 3D ECM cell culture – human biomaterial systems for improvement of new target identification and drug development.
Prof Rombouts has over 80 publications in international peer reviewed scientific Journals with over 7000 citations and h-index 45, i10-index of 73. Prof Rombouts has given invited seminars at universities, pharmaceutical companies, and national/international congresses. Prof Rombouts was Editorial Board Member of American Journal of Pathology and Journal of Hepatology. Prof Rombouts is Educational Committee member of the European Association for Study of the Liver (EASL). She is shareholder and consultant of UCL Spin-out Engitix Therapeutics Ltd since 2016 and has international academic collaborators and industrial partners.