Elisabeth Bel - Biography#

1983 M.D. University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
1990 Ph.D. (cum laude), Leiden University, The Netherlands
1995 Dutch Board Certificate in Respiratory Medicine

She continued developing her academic and research career in respiratory medicine at Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC), where she worked initially as a university lecturer and later as a staff doctor, senior university lecturer, head of the Pulmonary Diseases Outpatients’ Clinic, and chairperson of the Outpatients’ Clinic Section Heads for Internal Medicine.

This was followed by a fellowship at the Allergology Department of the University of Virginia for 1 year leading her to found the Multidisciplinary Centre for Asthma and Allergy at the LUMC.

With more than 20 years experience as consultant pulmonologist, certified teacher of medical students and trainer of residents in pulmonary medicine, Elisabreth was appointed to Professor of Respiratory Medicine and Head of Department of Respiratory Medicine at the Academic Medical Centre (AMC) in Amsterdam. Here she consolidated and advanced her position as a globally recognised expert in severe and difficult to treat asthma and a translational researcher with bedside-bench approach.

Her current research focuses on the more severe types of asthma that are difficult to treat, with a particular emphasis on the phenotyping, pathophysiological mechanisms, monitoring and therapeutic approach of this complex condition. Her research questions emanate directly from daily pulmonary practice, and in her attempts to find answers she uses pulmonary physiological, histological and molecular research techniques.

One important component of Professor Bel’s research is cooperation with national and European lung clinics, for example within the context of EU framework programmes the ENFUMOSA network (FP4), GA2LEN-severe asthma study (FP5), BIOAIR study (FP6) including leadership in the very successful Euro 21m IMI Unbiased BIOmarkers in PREDiction of respiratory disease outcomes (UBIOPRED), and more recently as one of the leaders of the ERS Clinical Research Collaborative, Severe Heterogenous Asthma Research collaboration, Patient-centered (SHARP).