20/09/2026
💖 BEFORE BIRTH, MEDICINE BEGINS
Some of the most important interventions in medicine happen before a child takes its first breath.
At SaMED 2026, we are honoured to welcome Prof. Karel Allegaert, MD, pediatrician, neonatologist and clinical pharmacologist, for his lecture “Fetal Therapy During Pregnancy”.
Professor Allegaert has been a professor at KU Leuven since 2013, within the Departments of Development and Regeneration and Pharmaceutical and Pharmacological Sciences. He is also a senior consultant at Erasmus University Rotterdam and a guest professor at Zhengzhou Pediatric Hospital and University.
His clinical and research career spans paediatrics, neonatology and clinical pharmacology, with a particular focus on perinatal and paediatric clinical pharmacology. His research explores how maturation, disease, pharmacogenetics and other factors influence drug exposure and treatment during the earliest stages of life.
His work has increasingly expanded into maternal-fetal and lactation-related drug exposure, pregnancy, neonatal pharmacology and the development of prediction models and tools for clinical research.
With around 50 projects as principal or co-principal investigator and more than 700 PubMed-indexed publications, his scientific work has contributed to understanding how medicine can be adapted to patients at their most vulnerable and rapidly changing stages of life.
He currently serves as Co-director of the Leuven Child & Youth Institute at KU Leuven and President of the European Paediatric Translational Research Infrastructure. He is also Chair of the Pediatric Clinical Pharmacology Section of IUPHAR and a member of several international and European scientific and regulatory bodies.
His lecture will take us to one of the most fascinating frontiers of perinatal medicine — where treatment begins before birth, and where every decision can shape the journey from the womb to the world.
From the Womb to the World 🌸
