BIOGRAPHY

Dr. Keijzer received his MD (with honours), PhD (Medicine) and MSc (Molecular Medicine) at ErasmusMC in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Before starting his specialist training he did a one-year research fellowship (as part of his PhD) at the Lung Biology Program of the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada. He received his training in General Surgery at ErasmusMC and did a postdoctoral fellowship in Physiology & Experimental Medicine at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. He then finished his Pediatric General Surgery training at ErasmusMC-Sophia and completed a Pediatric Endoscopic Surgery Fellowship in the Children's Hospital of Alabama in Birmingham, Alabama, USA. Subsequently, he moved to Canada to pursue his career as a pediatric surgeon-scientist at the University of Manitoba and Manitoba Institute of Child Health in Winnipeg, Manitoba. His clinical interest concentrates on minimal invasive Pediatric General Surgery and his research focuses on congenital anomalies in general and congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH) and pulmonary hypoplasia in particular. He has expertise in mechanisms of normal and abnormal lung development due to congenital diaphragmatic hernia. Currently, his research focuses on delineating the role of microRNAs during normal and abnormal lung development due to CDH. By improving the understanding of the pathogenesis of CDH and its abnormal lung development it is his ultimate dream is to develop a prenatal therapeutic intervention to modulate the natural course of the abnormal lung development in babies born with this disease to improve their outcome. He was recently awarded the Dr. Paul H.T. Thorlakson Chair in Surgical Research and is the Director of Research for the Department of Surgery of the University of Manitoba. Dr. Keijzer is the first Pediatric Surgeon-Scientist funded in the CCHCSP