Prof. Ilma R Korponay-Szabó is a specialist in gastroenterology and professor of paediatrics at the University of Debrecen, Hungary. She obtained her M.D. degree at the Semmelweis University Budapest with ’promotio sub auspiciis rei publicae’ state award and then specialised for paediatrics and gastroenterology between 1987 and 1995 at the Heim Pál Hospital, Budapest. She compeleted her Ph.D. in coeliac disease in 1997 and her D.Sc. in 2013 at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. From 1997 she obtained a grant to work in coeliac disease research at the University of Tampere, Finland where she contributed to the development of transglutaminase-based diagnostic tools. This active collaboration with Tampere is continuing to date.
From 2002 Prof. Korponay-Szabó has been based at the University of Debrecen where she was appointed as associate professor in 2004 and full professor in 2014. In Heim Pál she runs an open-access multidisciplinary coeliac disease centre and participated with her team in several international studies on transglutaminases or coeliac disease. She has 200 scientific publications with over 10000 citations.
Since 1998 she has been a member of the European Society for Paediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition (ESPGHAN) and national gastro societies. She is also currently president of the Hungarian Paediatric Gastroenterology Society and actively contributed to the last two revisions of ESPGHAN coeliac disease diagnostic guidelines (2012 and 2020).