Emeritus Professor of microbiology and immunology of the Faculty of Medicine of KU Leuven
As a staff member of the Rega Institute of this university he directed a research team investigating the structure and function of interferons and other cytokines. In 1991 he took the lead in creating an FNRS/NFWO-sponsored ‘contact group’ that started to organize annual symposia bringing together microbiologists working in Belgium. This initiative led to the establishment, in 1996, of the Belgian Society for Microbiology of which he became the first president.