Dr. Keijzer received his MD (with honours), PhD (Medicine) and MSc (Molecular Medicine) from ErasmusMC in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Before starting his specialist training, he did a one-year research fellowship (as part of his PhD) at the Lung Biology Program of the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada.
He received his training in General Surgery at ErasmusMC and did a postdoctoral fellowship in Physiology & Experimental Medicine at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. He then finished his Pediatric General Surgery training at ErasmusMC-Sophia and completed a Pediatric Endoscopic Surgery Fellowship in the Children’s Hospital of Alabama in Birmingham, Alabama, USA. Subsequently, he moved to Canada to pursue a career as a Pediatric Surgeon-Scientist at the University of Manitoba and the Children’s Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba in Winnipeg.
His clinical interest concentrates on minimal invasive Pediatric General Surgery and his research focuses on congenital anomalies in general and congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH) and abnormal lung development. He has expertise in the mechanisms of normal and abnormal lung development due to congenital diaphragmatic hernia. Currently, his research focuses on delineating the role of microRNAs during normal and abnormal lung development due to CDH. By improving the understanding of the pathogenesis of CDH and its abnormal lung development he aims to develop a prenatal therapeutic intervention to modulate the natural course of the abnormal lung development in these babies before they are born.
He is the Thorlakson Chair in Surgical Research and is the Director of Research and Graduate Chair for the Department of Surgery at the University of Manitoba. Dr. Keijzer was the first Pediatric Surgeon-Scientist funded in the Canadian Child Health Clinician Scientist Program.
