Dirk Inzé - Biography#

Dirk Inzé is a global leader in plant biology and an ISI ‘most cited author’. His research ambition is to obtain a holistic understanding of the molecular networks regulating plant organ growth and crop productivity. His work has opened up new perspectives for the identification of optimal growth regulatory networks that can be selected by advanced breeding, or for which more robust variants can be obtained through genetic engineering. As such, Dirk Inzé's work significantly contributes to providing food security for the growing world population.

Dirk Inzé received his PhD at Ghent in 1984. In 1990, he was appointed Research Director of the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA. In 1995, he became Professor at Ghent University and he was the scientific founder of the biotechnology company CropDesign (°1998 – later in 2006 acquired by BASF Plant Science). In 2002, Dirk was appointed Director of the Center for Plant Systems Biology of the VIB. Under his directorship, the Center– currently employing approximately 300 individuals – became one of the world leading centers for advanced plant sciences. Dirk’s research was recognized by numerous awards and he currently owns, for the second time, an advanced ERC grant . He published 500 papers in peer-reviewed journal and his work received >56,000 citations (H-factor 131). In 2017, Dirk was awarded with the prestigious World Agriculture Prize. In 2019 he was elected to the rank of AAAS Fellow by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Dirk Inzé is very frequently asked to give lectures at international conferences (>150 invited lectures) and a member of the science advisory board of many renowned institutes. He is a member of the editorial board of several high impact journals and the chair of the LS9 panel for advanced ERC grants. He is also very active at the science policy level. He has been the chair of the Life, Environmental and Geoscience committee of Science Europe and currently he is spearheading the Europe-wide request by 131 Plant Research Centers and Plant learned societies to allow for genome editing for crop improvement. This organization, EU-SAGE (European Sustainable Agriculture through Genome Editing) is chaired by Dirk Inzé and is one of the stakeholders in the ongoing consultation of the EU commission on genome editing.