Mehmet Sukru Sever was born in Antalya (1954); graduated from Cerrahpasa School of Medicine (1978), completed his nephrology fellowship at the Istanbul School of Medicine (ISM) (1990), and was trained on kidney transplantation at the Cleveland Clinic, US (1990). He focused on disaster medicine following the devastating Marmara earthquake-Turkey (1999), and served as the Chair of the Nephrology Department at ISM (2004-2014). DR. Sever prepared the largest database ever on crush syndrome-AKI patients, which formed the basis for many papers, almost all of which were the first, and still the only, publications on this subject. His book, “The Crush Syndrome” was published by Karger (2005). He co-chaired (together with Prof. R. Vanholder-Belgium) “The Crush Guidelines” workgroup of the ISN – Renal Disaster Relief Task Force (RDRTF), which prepared “Recommendations for the management of crush victims in mass disasters” (2012).
Dr. Sever functioned as a field doctor and disaster relief coordinator of the ISN in many disasters; e.g. the Marmara (1999), Bingol (2003), Van-Ercis (2011) earthquakes in Turkey, and Bam earthquake in Iran (2003). He served as the renal team leader of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) (Doctors Without Borders) when he went to Pakistan for the Kashmir earthquake (2005), and Haiti for the Haiti earthquake (2010). Thus, (in addition to kidney transplantation), most of his academic work is focused on the evaluation, prevention and treatment of crush-related AKI in the victims of mass disasters.

Dr. Sever took active part in many positions and activities of ERA-EDTA, and served as councilor (2012-2015), Scientific Advisory Board member (2014- ), DESCARTES Workgroup Board  member (2017- ), Nephrology and Public Policy Committee Board member (Eastern Europe) (2018- ), Ethics Committee Board member (2019-),  and also transplantation subject editor of NDT (2007-2017). He also served for ISN in several positions, e.g. AKI  Commission Board member (2004-2011), RDRTF Board member, ISN-COMGAN Eastern and Central Europe Committee Board member  (2007-).

Dr. Sever received FERA degree (2012) and won ISN – Bywaters Award (2019).

He is currently author on >160 peer-reviewed publications in many international journals (including NEJM, Lancet, JASN, CJASN, Transplantation, Kidney Int, Nephrol Dial Transplant), and wrote chapters in major nephrology textbooks and UPTODATE.

Dr. Sever continues his work at ISM, Department of Nephrology, especially on the subjects of kidney patients during disasters and kidney transplantation.