Povl Riis

Prof. Povl Riis (born 28 December 1925) is a Danish gastroenterologist. He was a Professor at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark from 1974 to 1996.
In 1956 he used, for the first time, amniocentesis to make an antenatal diagnose of sexual related genetic disease.
Riis also served as president of National Research Ethics Committee of Denmark, created in 1979. He wrote the second version of the Helsinki Declaration of Human Research in 1975 with Prof. Bloomquist (Sweden) and Prof. Engers (Norway). He is also a founding member of Vancouver Group of Medical Editors.
Riis received his MD from the University of Copenhagen in 1952 and DM Sci in 1959. He served there as a professor of medicine from 1974-96. He was also vice president of the European Science Foundation from 1974-77 and the Chairman of the Danish Medical Research Council from 1972-77.