Professor Yves van de Peer
Professor Yves van de Peer’s research into gene prediction and genome annotation, comparative and evolutionary genomics and systems biology has placed him at the forefront of his field. He has a special interest in the evolution of genes and genomes, with an emphasis on gene and genome duplications.
Van de Peer completed an undergraduate degree in biology and obtained his PhD in biochemistry from the University of Antwerp, Belgium. He is Professor in bioinformatics and genome biology at Ghent University, and Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie group leader in the department of plant systems biology. Currently, he is leading the bioinformatics and systems biology division, a group of about 35 bioinformaticians with backgrounds in biology, computer science, physics, and mathematics. He is also part-time Professor at the Genomics Research Institute of the University of Pretoria.
His work has covered a variety of areas in genetics, including the study of genome evolution and duplications. He has developed unique software and tools that assist in the identification of homologous regions within and between genomes, critical for studying genome structure and evolution. His research group is widely recognised as a centre of excellence in gene prediction and genome annotation and comparative and evolutionary genomics. Because of their specific expertise, the group has been, and still is, involved in many international genome projects. He currently supervises nine Postdoctoral Fellows and 10 PhD students within his bioinformatics and systems biology group.
Van de Peer has published more than 300 peer-reviewed papers during his career in journals such as Nature, Nature Genetics, Science, and PNAS and has authored or co-authored numerous books and book chapters.
He is an associate editor of various journals including BMC Bioinformatics, Genome Biology and Evolution, and the Plant Journal. He also regularly reviews papers for a variety of journals and has given more than 150 talks at international workshops and seminars.
Van de Peer was recently elected to the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts.