Harry Janssen

Program Director, Toronto Centre for Liver Disease, Francis Family Chair in Liver Research, University Health Network, Toronto, Canada, and Professor of Medicine, University of Toronto and Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Harry Janssen graduated from medical school at the Radboud University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands. During his studies, he spent 1 year as research fellow in hepatology at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, USA. He obtained his PhD in Rotterdam on the role of immune modulating therapy in chronic hepatitis B, and subsequently trained in internal medicine at Leiden University Medical Centre and in gastroenterology and hepatology at Rotterdam’s Erasmus University Medical Centre.

Following his registration as a Gastroenterologist, he returned to the Mayo Clinic for a research fellowship in hepatology at the Center of Basic Research in Digestive Diseases. In 2001, he became a staff member and in 2006, he was appointed as Professor of Hepatology and Head of the Liver Unit at Erasmus University Medical Centre. In 2011, Dr Janssen was named Section Head for Viral Hepatitis at the Medical Centre.

In 2013, Dr Janssen joined University Health Network in Toronto, where he was appointed as the Francis Family Chair in Liver Research and the Director of the Toronto Centre for Liver Disease – the largest clinical programme in liver disease and viral hepatitis in North America.

Dr Janssen was previously Chairman of the Dutch Association of Hepatology and was elected as a Rising Star in Gastroenterology and Hepatology by the Association of the National European Societies of Gastroenterology. He has been a member of the Editorial Board of Hepatology, Journal of Hepatology and Best Practice in Gastroenterology. He has published more than 350 original peer-reviewed papers and has mentored more than 35 PhD students in the last decade.