Bart De Strooper is a Belgian molecular biologist and professor at

Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie Flemish ( ) is a Low Franconian dialect cluster of the Dutch language. It is sometimes referred to as Flemish Dutch (), Belgian Dutch ( ), or Southern Dutch (). Flemish is native to the region known as Flanders in northern Belgium; it is spo ...

and

KU Leuven KU Leuven (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven) is a Catholic research university in the city of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium. Founded in 1425, it is the oldest university in Belgium and the oldest university in the Low Countries. In addition to its mai ...

(

Leuven Leuven (, , ), also called Louvain (, , ), is the capital and largest City status in Belgium, city of the Provinces of Belgium, province of Flemish Brabant in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is located about east of Brussels. The municipalit ...

Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...

) and the UK Dementia Research Institute and

University College London University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...

, UK. De Strooper's research seeks to translate genetic data into the identification and treatment of neurodegenerative diseases and treatments. interest are the

secretase 300px, Processing of the amyloid-beta precursor proteinSecretases are enzymes that "snip" pieces off a longer protein that is embedded in the cell membrane. Among other roles in the cell, secretases act on the amyloid-beta precursor protein (APP) ...

protease A protease (also called a peptidase, proteinase, or proteolytic enzyme) is an enzyme that catalysis, catalyzes proteolysis, breaking down proteins into smaller polypeptides or single amino acids, and spurring the formation of new protein products ...

s which cleave the

amyloid precursor protein Amyloid-beta precursor protein (APP) is an integral membrane protein expressed in many biological tissue, tissues and concentrated in the synapses of neurons. It functions as a cell surface receptor and has been implicated as a regulator of s ...

(APP), resulting in amyloid

peptide Peptides are short chains of amino acids linked by peptide bonds. A polypeptide is a longer, continuous, unbranched peptide chain. Polypeptides that have a molecular mass of 10,000 Da or more are called proteins. Chains of fewer than twenty am ...

Career

De Strooper obtained an MD at the

in 1985 and a PhD in 1992. He would go on to complete his postdoc at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (

EMBL The European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) is an intergovernmental organization dedicated to molecular biology research and is supported by 29 member states, two prospect member states, and one associate member state. EMBL was created in ...

) in

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; ; ) is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, fifth-largest city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, and with a population of about 163,000, of which roughly a quarter consists of studen ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

under Dr. Carlos Dotti. De Strooper returned to his alma mater in 1999, joining the '' VIB Center for the Biology of Disease,'' now known as the VIB-

Center for Brain & Disease Research. Along with continued advancement in neurodegenerative diseases, De Strooper became the center's Departmental Director in 2007, leading over 250 neuroscience researchers. He would also serve as a Professor of Neurodegenerative Diseases at

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In December 2016 he became the director of the UK Dementia Research Institute (DRI) at University College London

University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...
. Under De Strooper's leadership, the DRI "established seven major research centres, recruited over 60 Principal Investigators, and built a community of 800-plus researches". De Strooper voluntarily stepped down from the role in November 2022, citing a desire to focus on dementia and translational neuroscience at the UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology

The UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology is an institute within the Faculty of Brain Sciences of University College London (UCL) and is located in London, United Kingdom. Together with the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, a ...
. He continues to collaborate with the Academy of Medical Sciences fellowship, to which he was elected to in 2020.

Awards

Together with Christian Haass, De Strooper received the Potamkin Prize
The Potamkin Prize for Research in Pick's, Alzheimer's, and Related Diseases was established in 1988 and is sponsored by the American Academy of Neurology. The prize is funded through the philanthropy of the Potamkin Foundation. The prize is awarde ...
in 2002. The following year he was the recipient of the 2003 Alois Alzheimer Award of the Deutscher Gesellschaft für Gerontopsychiatrie und psychotherapie and the 2005 Joseph Maisin Prize for fundamental biomedical sciences.He received the 2008 Metlife Foundation Award for Medical Research in Alzheimer's Disease

The Metlife Foundation Award for Medical Research in Alzheimer's Disease were awarded annually from 1986 to 2016 to recognize scientific contributions toward a better understanding of the underlying causes, prevention, and treatments of Alzheimer' ...
along with Robert Vassar and Philip C. Wong

He shared the 2018 Brain Prize
The Brain Prize, formerly known as The Grete Lundbeck European Brain Research Prize, is an international scientific award honouring "one or more scientists who have distinguished themselves by an outstanding contribution to neuroscience and who are ...
with John Hardy, Christian Haass and Michel Goedert

Michel Goedert FRS, FMedSci is a Luxembourgish-British neuroscientist and former Head of Neurobiology, at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology.

Goedert was born and raised in Luxembourg. After finishing his medical studies at the University ...
. The same year Expertscape, a research ranking publisher, recognized Dr. Strooper as one of the top experts in the world in Alzheimer's disease

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease and the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in remembering recent events. As the disease advances, symptoms can include problems wit ...
. In the same year, De Strooper was awarded the prestigious Commander of the Order of Leopold I

The Order of Leopold (, , ) is one of the three current Belgian national honorary orders of knighthood. It is the oldest and highest order of Belgium and is named in honour of its founder, King Leopold I. It consists of a military, a mari ...
, a national honorary orders of Knightood.

References

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Sources

VIB Department of Molecular and Developmental Genetics

Belgian molecular biologists
KU Leuven alumni
Academic staff of KU Leuven
Alzheimer's disease researchers
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)
Belgian neuroscientists
Members of the National Academy of Medicine

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