Scientific committee

Organizing Committee

Prof. Jo Vandesompele

Jo Vandesompele Jo Vandesompele has a Master of Science in Bio-engineering (1997, UGent), a PhD in Medical Genetics (2002, UGent) and is Professor in functional genomics and biocomputing at Ghent University since 2007. He is author of more than 70 scientific articles in international journals, including some pioneering publications in the domain of real-time PCR. Because of his internationally recognized expertise in this domain, Jo is regularly invited as speaker at international meetings and courses. Together with Jan Hellemans he developed advanced and universally applicable quantification methods for automated and correct qPCR data analysis. He is also one of the founders of the RDML consortium.

Dr. Hakim El Housni

Hakim El Housni has a PhD in BioMedical Science (2000, Universite Libre de Bruxelles) and is working in the Department of Medical Genetics in the Erasmus Hospital in Brussels since 1999. He is author of a dozen scientific articles in international journals, most of which related to real-time PCR. The main part of his work is dedicated to the development of new analytical tools helpful in the diagnosis of hemato-oncology and genetic diseases.

Other members

Dr. Jan Hellemans

Jan Hellemans Jan Hellemans has a Master in Biotechnology (2000, UGent) and a PhD in Medical Genetics (2007, UGent). He is a postdoctoral fellow at the Ghent University Hospital and supervises a core facility for automated DNA-isolation, sequencing, genotyping and high-throughput real-time PCR. Jan is the designer and programmer of the qBase software that is being used by over 4000 researchers worldwide for qPCR data analysis. Together with Jo Vandesompele, he is active in the development of new concepts and algorithms for improved qPCR data analysis, and one of the founders of the RDML consortium. Jan Hellemans is author of several scientific articles in high-ranked journals, and active as a teacher in qPCR courses.

Dr. Onno Bakker

Onno Bakker obtained his biochemistry degree in 1984 and his Ph.D. in Biochemistry in 1988, both at the University of Groningen (NL). He is currently head of research of the Department of Endocrinology at the Academic Medical Centre in Amsterdam and using PCR for quantification and mutation detection on a daily basis. He has over 60 publications in peer-reviewed journals and book chapters, including papers on qPCR methodology and efficiency calculations. He lectures around the world on issues dealing with qPCR and is also been involved in assay development and troubleshooting for one of the major companies in the field. Together with Martie Verschuren at the Avans Hogeschool in Breda he runs an annual international course in quantitative PCR techniques.

Prof. Carsten Carlberg

Carsten Carlberg has a MSc and PhD degree in biochemistry (Free University Berlin) and is since 2000 professor of biochemistry at the University of Kuopio (Finland) and since 2006 professor of computational biology at the University of Luxembourg. He is author to more than 125 peer-reviewed publications. The research of Prof. Carlberg focuses on the identification and characterization on primary target genes of nuclear receptors, where real-time PCR is a central method.