Biography
Dr. Descamps is currently (since 1992) Lipid Clinic Director at the Centre Hospitalier Jolimont-Lobbes, Nivelles-Tubize (South Belgium). He was appointed Director of the Center for Medical Research in the same hospital in 2004. He received his Board certification in general internal medicine from the Catholic University of Louvain (Brussels) in 1992. Dr.
Descamps then continued his training in lipidology (clinical as well as fundamental aspects) at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas with Professor David Bilheimer and Joachim Hers (professors Michael Brown and Joseph Goldstein team)(1989-1992). Olivier Descamps earned his Ph.D. in Public Health on the topic of Familial Hypercholesterolemia (FH).
He divides his time between being a clinical practitioner and a clinical researcher where focuses on solving the problems encountered in clinical practice. His area of special interest is genetics, including familial hypercholesterolemia, as well as, the early influence of genetics in in utero lipid metabolism.
He also has a particular interest in the role of lipid management in the prevention of heart disease, in the general population. Like many clinicians in the EAS, he tries to participate in as many clinical research trials as possible, including those which investigate new lipid lowering drugs and may help to develop innovative perspectives for CVD prevention.
He has published several papers in international journals, including “Atherosclerosis”, on original questions linked to genetic lipidology and has published numerous reviews and commentaries in Belgian medical journals. He and his colleagues have received numerous awards for their research in the field of lipidology.
Dr. Descamps has been involved with the EAS since 1993 and has attended almost all of the EAS congresses since then. He has actively participated in the MEDPED-FH project and has organised the first four meetings of the EAS linked European Network of Inherited Dyslipidemia (ENID) with Professor Steve Humphries, London, UK and Professor Ole Faergeman, Aarhus, Denmark. In Belgium, he is actively involved in the Belgian Society of Internal Medicine and the Belgian Lipid Club (the “Belgian Atherosclerosis Society”).