Bernard Knoops

Background

About Bernard Knoops

Bernard Knoops, Master in Biology (Catholic University of Louvain, 1984), PhD in Neurobiology (Catholic University of Louvain, 1990) is born in Brussels, Belgium, in 1962. He was postdoctoral fellow at McGill University, Canada (Profs. Albert Aguayo and Salvatore Carbonetto) and at the Catholic University of Louvain (Prof. Jean-Noel Octave and Prof. Alfred Bernard). He was then appointed to a faculty position (1997 to present) at the School of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, Louvain Institute of Biomolecular Science and Technology, Catholic University of Louvain in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. Bernard Knoops currently holds the position of Full Professor of Animal Biology, Histology and Molecular Cell Biology. He is/was titular or co-titular of five lectures at the Catholic University of Louvain. From 1984 until 1997, research activities of Bernard Knoops were focused on axonal regeneration in the peripheral and central nervous system of mammals. Since 1997, his research is mainly focused on the characterization of peroxiredoxins and thioredoxins, and their physiological roles in animal cells. In particular, his group in collaboration with Belgian and foreign groups, has made important contributions to the identification and the characterization of mammalian peroxiredoxin-5. In he cloned the sequence of the cDNA coding for human peroxiredoxin-5 and published the first characterization of this peroxidase highly conserved in mammals and defining a new subfamily among peroxiredoxins. This first publication on peroxiredoxin-5 was followed by the determination of the tridimensional structure of the reduced enzyme obtained in collaboration with Prof. Jean-Paul Declercq. Since this seminal work, the group of Bernard Knoops pursued the study of human peroxiredoxin-5 as well as other animal peroxiredoxins and thioredoxins at the molecular and cellular level. Bernard Knoops published over 81 papers and 2 book chapters. His work has been cited over 5409 times and the H index over his 20 years research activities is 39 (Google Scholar, January 2025). He obtained more than 22 national and international grants. In addition to his role as teacher at the Faculty of Science at the Catholic University of Louvain, he supervised 17 PhD theses and more than 59 Master degree theses. Bernard Knoops has been elected Vice-president (2004-2010) and President (2010-2013) of the Institute of Life Sciences/Louvain Institute of Biomolecular Science and Technology (Catholic University of Louvain).