University Hospitals Leuven, Belgium
Jan Deprest MD PhD FRCOG is Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the KU Leuven (Belgium) and UCL (United Kingdom). He has a research interest in fetal surgery, in particular to antenatal interventions that modulate fetal development in case of congenital birth defects. He directs the clinical fetal surgery program in Leuven, and did set up the program at University College London Hospital to treat fetuses with spina bifida and congenital diaphragmatic hernia. Both teams are working on novel image guided surgical instruments for fetal surgery. He initiated and directed the Eurofoetus consortium, which designed a series of fetoscopic instruments with support from the European Commission, and since a number of other European projects in fetal medicine. He published over 600 peer reviewed papers, and directed over 30 PhD projects. He has been awarded some prizes, amongst which the ISUOG Ian Donald Award and the J Daels prize by the Belgian Royal Academy of Medical Sciences as the most prestigious ones.