Understanding the Fundamental Mechanisms That Underlie Alzheimer’s Disease

Bart De Strooper is a professor of molecular medicine at KU Leuven and VIB, and professor in dementia research at the University College London. He was the director of the VIB Center for Brain & Disease Research from 2007 until 2016 and founding director of the UK Dementia Research institute from 2016 until 2023.

His scientific work focuses on the understanding of the fundamental mechanisms that underlie Alzheimer’s disease. His major findings are the generation of amyloid plaque pathology that characterizes the disease, and the role of ADAM10 and presenilin/gamma-secretase in the proteolysis of the amyloid precursor protein and Notch. More recently he has demonstrated the crucial role of the glia cells in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s Disease.

De Strooper received his PhD in 1991 from KU Leuven. He worked as postdoctoral researcher at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, in the laboratory of Carlos Dotti. In 2018, Bart De Strooper, together with John Hardy, Christian Haas and Michel Goedert, was awarded the Brain Prize for his ground-breaking research on the genetic and molecular basis of Alzheimer disease.