2023 Erasmus Medal Laudator
Biography
Ole Petersen CBE FRS is one of the Founding Members of Academia Europaea. He succeeded the Nobel Laureate Sir Martin Evans FRS, as Director of the School of Biosciences at Cardiff University in 2010, completing his 5-year term in 2015. He continues at Cardiff University as Professor of Biosciences and Director of Academia Europaea’s Cardiff University Knowledge Hub. Before joining Cardiff University, Petersen was George Holt Professor of Physiology at the University of Liverpool for 28 years. Petersen discovered ion channels in epithelial cells and their critical role in controlling secretion (Nature 1982-1989). He discovered local calcium signals and intracellular calcium tunnels in exocrine gland cells (Cell 1990-1997) and, more recently, unraveled the molecular events in the development of the often-fatal human disease Acute Pancreatitis (AP) (PNAS 2000-2013). He has more recently developed a new evidence-based theory for the initiation of AP, involving necrotic amplification loops between three different cell types (Physiol Rev 2021). His current h-index is 104 (Google Scholar) or 93 (Web of Science). Petersen is Fellow of the Royal Society, Member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina and Fellow/Member of five other European Academies. He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in 2008 ‘for services to science’. He chaired the Biological Sciences Panel in the UK Government’s 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF2014) and has served as Secretary-General of IUPS (International Union of Physiological Sciences), European Executive Editor of the American Physiological Society’s flagship journal Physiological Reviews and President of The Physiological Society (UK). In 2020, he became Editor-in-Chief of the American Physiological Society’s new Open Access journal Function. Petersen has received many prizes for his research, including the NOVO Nordisk Foundation’s Jacobaeus Prize, the Czech Academy of Sciences’ Purkyne Medal and the American Physiological Society’s highest honour, the Walter B Cannon Memorial Award. In July 2022, he received the International Association of Pancreatology’s George E Palade Prize and Medal and gave the Award Lecture at the meeting of the Japan Pancreas Society in Kyoto. In September 2023, he will deliver the Plenary FEPS (Federation of European Physiological Societies) Lecture at the Society’s Annual Meeting on ‘Physiology in Focus 2023’ in Tallinn, Estonia.