Prof Jan De Bleecker

Jan De Bleecker is a neurologist working at the University Hospital and AZ St. Lucas Hospital in Gent, Belgium. He did his fellowship in neuromuscular diseases with Dr. Andy G. Engel at Mayo Clinic Rochester and has a longstanding main interest in the immunopathology of inflammatory myopathies, and contributed to clinical research in the field of ALS, muscular dystrophies, hereditary and inflammatory neuropathies and neurotoxicology.

Professor Dr Jan De Bleecker graduated from Ghent State University in 1986 as M.D. Having graduated as an M.D. he specialized in Neurology from 1986 to 1991. He subsequently completed a post-doctoral research fellowship in neuromuscular diseases with Dr. A.G. Engel at the Mayo Clinic and Mayo Graduate School of Medicine, Rochester, US from 1991 to 1993.

Prof De Bleecker is a full-time staff consultant at the Neurology department in the University Hospital Ghent since 1994 and a part-time staff consultant at the Neurology department in AZ St-Lucas Ghent. Since 1999, he leads the Neuromuscular Reference Center for adults in UZ Gent as a specialist in neuromuscular disorders with a special interest in ALS and inflammatory/autoimmune muscle and nerve diseases. He is a professor of Neurology at the faculty of Medicine Ghent University since 2006.

As an expert in neuromuscular disorders, professor De Bleecker has published numerous research papers in his field. He leads a significant number of clinical trials as principal investigator and is president of the commission “Molecular and physiopathological basis of other neuromuscular diseases” of the AFM.