Johan Neyts

Neyts lab has a long-standing expertise in the development of antivirals strategies and drugs against emerging and neglected viral infections such as dengue and other flaviviruses, Chikungunya and other alphaviruses, enteroviruses, noroviruses, HEV and rabies and is intensively involved in the search for antiviral strategies against SARS-CoV2.  A second focus of the laboratory, together with the team of Prof. Kai Dallmeier is the development of the PLLAV (Plasmid Launched Live Attenuated Virus) vaccine technology, which is based on the yellow fever virus vaccine as a vector and allows to rapidly engineer highly thermostable vaccines against multiple viral pathogens. Johan is past-president of the International Society for Antiviral Research. He is the co-founder of KU Leuven spin-offs AstriVax and Okapi Sciences. He published >620 papers in peer reviewed journals, has given ~300 invited lectures and provides content to a larger audience via lay-press.