Dirk Daelemans is a molecular (cell) biologist with broad expertise in virology and oncology. He graduated as Master in Biosciences Engineering at the KU Leuven followed by a PhD in virology at the Laboratory of Virology and Chemotherapy headed by Prof Erik De Clercq. He continued his scientific career as a BAEF fellow and NIH Fogarty postdoc fellow at the NCI/NIH (MD, USA). He is currently appointed as fulltime Professor at the KU Leuven and co-teaches Methods in Biomedical Research in the Bachelor program of Biomedical Sciences as well as in the Research Tracks Microbiology, Oncology and Molecular Cell Biology of the Master program. He is also chair of a permanent Thesis Advisory Committee of the Doctoral School Biomedical Sciences.

His research has been focused on the nucleocytoplasmic transport of the mammalian cell, a process essential for cellular homeostasis, but also for virus replication and cancer. He started his research career as a PhD student on nucleocytoplasmic transport in the context of HIV. He is a pioneer in the field of drug discovery against this process as he discovered an important class of drug-like inhibitors of the exportin 1 (XPO1) mediated nuclear export process. Although discovered against viruses, these XPO1 inhibitors have important potential for the treatment of cancer and that is how he and his research team gained expertise in oncology. The XPO1 inhibitors were licensed to Karyopharm Therapeutics (Newton, MA) which further developed them into the clinical drug selinexor that is currently nearly globally accessible to patients for the treatment of multiple myeloma or diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. For the validation of the mechanism of action of this new class of inhibitors the lab utilized CRISPR technology and is now applying the technology in all its flavors.

Outside the lab Dirk spends time with his family, loves swimming and farming, and breeds jumping horses.