Stefan D. Anker

Stefan D. Anker is Head of Field “Tissue Homeostasis and Cachexia" at Charité University, Berlin, Germany. Previously, he was Professor of Innovative Clinical Trials at University Medical Center Göttingen in Germany. The main focus of the Innovative Clinical Trials department was research in the field of chronic heart failure, including the development and clinical testing of new therapies.
He studied medicine at Charité Medical School of Humboldt-University Berlin, Germany (1987-1993) and completed his PhD at the National Heart and Lung Institute of Imperial College London, United Kingdom, in 1998. Since then, he has had teaching appointments in several countries (UK, Germany, Australia, Italy).
His particular research interests include the pathophysiology and treatment of acute and chronic heart failure (CHF), cardiac device therapy, clinical evaluation of cardiovascular biomarkers, pathophysiology of muscle wasting, cachexia therapy in CHF, ageing, sarcopenia and cancer.
Anker is a member of and serves on the Boards of several academic organisations. He serves on the editorial boards of five scientific journals (including "European Heart Journal" and "European Journal of Heart Failure"). He is founding Editor-in-Chief of the "Journal of Cachexia, Sarcopenia and Muscle" and of "ESC Heart Failure", which is the first open access heart failure journal.
Anker has won several prizes (including two American Heart Association Young Investigator Awards), and has obtained a number of fellowships and grants, including two National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants (Warfarin Versus Aspirin in Reduced Cardiac Ejection Fraction (WARCEF) Trial), two grants from the EU’s Seventh Framework Programme for Research (FP7), and one Innovative Medicines Initiative / Horizon 2020 grant.
Memberships.
Anker has been a member of the German Cardiac Society and of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) since 1995. He is currently Vice President of the ESC in charge of National Cardiac Societies and Communications. He has been serving on the board of the ESC since 2012. In addition, he has been serving on the board of the Heart Failure Association (HFA) of the ESC since 2006. He was HFA President between 2012 and 2014 and he currently chairs the HFA committee on regulatory affairs.
Anker is the Founding President of the International Society on Sarcopenia, Cachexia and Wasting Disorders (SCWD).
Publications.
Anker has authored more than 700 original papers, reviews, and editorials. Total citations exceed 46,000, including over 50 papers with more than 200 citations. He has an h-index of 104. Main topics are heart failure, chronic disease, cachexia and biological markers.
Consensus meetings and guidelines.
Anker has participated in and chaired several consensus meeting and guidelines committees:
Research.
Stefan Anker has been a member of more than 30 international clinical trial steering committees, chairing or co-chairing more than 10 (including the FAIR-HF, TIM-HF, BACH, AUGMENT-HF, ACT-ONE, RESHAPE-HF2, IMPULSE-HF, FAIR-HF2, Fair-HFpEF, EMPORER-HFpEF trials). He served in several data and safety monitoring boards (chairing five) and end-point committees (chairing three). In 2015 and again in 2016, he was named in the Thomson Reuters Highly Cited Researchers list.