Vanessa Vankerckhoven I

Biography

  Vanessa Vankerckhoven is appointed Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at Novosanis. She co-founded the company in March 2013. Novosanis is a spin-off company from the University of Antwerp and is specialized in medical devices.  Vanessa Vankerckhoven previously worked as Research & Innovation Manager of the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Institute (VAXINFECTIO) at the University of Antwerp (from 2009 until 2013). She was responsible for assessing and coordinating technology transfer opportunities and facilitating collaborations with research and industrial partners. She also worked as project manager and head of the managing entity for the EU-IMI project RAPP-ID (Development of RApid Point-of-Care test Platforms for Infectious Diseases; www.rapp-id.eu).  Vanessa Vankerckhoven started her career in September 2000 at the Laboratory of Medical Microbiology at the University Hospital Antwerp / University of Antwerp, Belgium headed by Prof Dr Herman Goossens. Next to conducting a PhD, she worked as the project manager for the EU-PROSAFE project (safety of probiotics) from 2002 to mid 2006, and from April 2007 to October 2011 as the project manager of the EU-ESAC project (antimicrobial consumption). From 2004 until 2009 she was also a teaching assistant and responsible for the practical courses in microbiology for students Biomedical Sciences and Medicine. She was also responsible for coordinating the theoretical courses in Microbiology for students Biomedical Sciences and theoretical courses in Micro-organisms and Infectious Diseases for Medicine students. In 2009, Vanessa Vankerckhoven successfully defended her PhD in Medical Sciences entitled ‘Probiotics: Safety, immunomodulation and effects on the human gastro-intestinal flora’. Promotors were Prof Dr Herman Goossens (University of Antwerp, Belgium) and Prof Dr Emmanuel Wiertz (Leiden University Medical Centre, the Netherlands) as well as Dr Geert Huys (Ghent University, Belgium) as co-promotor. During her PhD, Vanessa Vankerckhoven conducted research stays at the University of Turku, Finland, at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, and at the Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, the Netherlands for several months. Vanessa Vankerckhoven is co-inventor on two patent applications, had published many scientific articles as author and co-author in international peer-reviewed journals and has written several book chapters. She presented scientific work at numerous international and national conferences. Specialties: medical devices, infectious diseases, microbiology, vaccines, clinical trials, in vitro diagnostics, probiotics, antibiotics, gut microbiota, EU and national (IWT) project applications

Research Interest