Professor Péter Hegyi MAE, Director of the Academia Europaea Budapest Hub, has been awarded the Robert F. Pitts Lectureship at the International Union of Physiological Sciences (IUPS) Congress 2025.
Named after Robert F. Pitts, a pioneering American kidney physiologist, the Pitts Lecture – presented at every IUPS Congress since 1978 – has traditionally been delivered by internationally renowned nephrologists, including Dennis Brown MAE (Harvard Medical School, USA). For the first time, however, it has now been presented by a pancreatologist.
In his Award Lecture in Frankfurt, Germany, last week, Professor Hegyi summarised 25 years of research on the ion transport mechanisms of pancreatic ducts. His group was the first to demonstrate that pancreatic bicarbonate secretion is regulated not only by stimulatory but also by inhibitory mechanisms—a finding that reshaped understanding of pancreatic physiology and raised new questions about acute and chronic pancreatitis. His team also established the central role of the CFTR protein in pancreatic inflammatory diseases and showed that CFTR modulators, currently used in cystic fibrosis, may also correct alcohol-induced folding and activity defects of the protein.
“The next step is to test these findings in human clinical trials. If successful, this could represent the first truly specific therapy for pancreatitis,” Professor Hegyi emphasised.
Posted 22nd September 2025. For more information contact aecardiffhub@cardiff.ac.uk
