EPC
Life Time Achievement

Award

Each year, the EPC selects one or two European pancreatologists who have consistently made an outstanding contribution to the advancement of the field of pancreatology, both in terms of scientific knowledge and in terms of having a significant impact on the European Pancreatic Club and the pancreatic community.

It is a tradition of the EPC that a renowned colleague honours the life’s work of the award winner in an introductory laudation before the laureate gives his speech.

As the last three EPC meetings have only been held virtually, two colleagues will be honoured at this year’s congress: the award winners of 2022 and 2023.

The awards ceremonies will take place on Thursday and Friday after lunch.

 

Jonas Rosendahl
Natalya Gubergrits

EPC 2022 Life Time Achievement Award
Jonas Rosendahl will give the laudation of the EPC 2022 Award Lecture. He is Professor of Gastroenterology at the Martin Luther University in Halle, Germany. He is Treasurer of the EPC.

During his medical thesis, he discovered his love for the central organ of our interest. This love never left him and, as is known from reliable sources, is surpassed only by love for his wife and children. His focus is on the genetic basis of chronic pancreatitis, where he contributed to the pathogenic understanding of the disease with pioneering studies.

Consequences of chronic pancreatitis and exocrine pancreatic insufficiency

The EPC 2022 Life Time Achievement Awardee is Natalya Gubergrits from Ukraine. In 1982, she graduated from Donetsk State Medical University. From 2001 to 2014, she was the head of the Department of Internal Medicine at Donetsk National Medical University. Since 2015, she has been the top gastroenterologist at a large clinic in Odesa, Ukraine.

In 2007, Natalya Gubergrits founded the Ukrainian Pancreatic Club, one of the biggest pancreatic clubs in Europe. Members of the Ukrainian Pancreatic Club are doctors from the post-Soviet republics such as Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan. She was Council member of the EPC (2015–2018) and of the IAP (2010–2017). In 2022, she was President of the EPC.

She is the author of about 2,000 publications, more than 20 monographs and tutorials, and co-author of a number of European and international guidelines on pancreatic diseases.

Günther Klöppel
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EPC 2023 Life Time Achievement Award
Günter Klöppel will introduce the EPC 2023 Award. He is an Emeritus Professor and Consultant of pancreatic and endocrine tumours at the Department of Pathology of the Technical University Munich (TUM), Germany.

He is distinguished for his numerous significant contributions to pancreatic pathology as well as neuroendocrine neoplasms. Since 1996 until today, he has been involved as contributing author or editor in the WHO Classifications of Endocrine Tumours or Tumours of the Digestive System. He has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the EPC Lifetime Achievement Award in 2013. He is Honorary Member of the European and Spanish Society of Pathology, and Member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.

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This year’s winner is a professor of gastroenterology and hepatology at one of the most prestigious institutes in the world. He started out small with a colloquium theologicum at the Christiana Albertina and realised that even a good doctor can help people.

His research focus is on diseases of the pancreas, both clinically and in the laboratory. As a principal investigator, he conducted several early-stage clinical trials, including a personalized anticancer drug trial in pancreatic cancer. His main interests are chronic and autoimmune pancreatitis, pancreatic exocrine function and testing as well as the endocrine-exocrine axis.

He was and is a key contributor to numerous international guidelines on pancreatic diseases.

He served the EPC in various positions for many years. He is still not tired and even now constantly plagued by wanderlust. Despite rumours that he is more in the air than on the ground, he has never lost his grip on the ground. “Go forth, my heart, and seek delight…”

Ready for
EPC 2023?