Engineer for Chemistry and Agricultural Industries (1968) and PhD in in Agricultural Sciences (1974), both at the K.U.Leuven (KUL, Belgium). Retired Full professor and Emeritus professor at Ghent University. Member of the Chinese Academy of Science, the Morrocon academy of sciences, honorary professor of Pretoria University (South Africa). Former Director of the BCCM Belgium Coordinated collection of Microrganisms, former President of the World Federation of Culture Collections. Former editor of FEMS Letters, former coordinator/member of 22 European Union Research Projects. Editor of books on Xanthomonas (1993), on the Biology of Vibrios (2005) and on Microbial Genetic Resources for Biodiscovery (2004). Former Scientific advisory functions for Gist Brocades (Delft, The Netherlands), Suikerunie (Roosendaal, The Netherlands), Institute Pasteur, Plant Genetic Systems (Gent, Belgium), Helix (Gent, Belgium), Scientific advisory functions for the Commission of the EU and OECD, Scientific auditor for The Dutch Royal Academy of Sciences (Amsterdam, The Netherlands) and for Institut Pasteur (France, Paris). Visiting Professor at the Graduate Program in Genetics at UFRJ - CNPq-Ciência Sem Fronteira and CAPES-Print (https://www.pggen.intranet.biologia.ufrj.br/colaboracoes.html). Supervised 20 Posdocs, 25 PhDs, and 23 MSc projects. Over 656 publications in international journals with peer review (H=116; 53 thousand citations).
