Vincent Segers

Vincent Segers is associate professor at the University of Antwerp and interventional cardiologist at the University Hospital Antwerp, Belgium. He graduated medical school Summa cum laude and started his Ph.D. at the laboratory of Physiology at the University of Antwerp and, thereafter, worked in Boston from 2005‒2010, first as a postdoctoral research fellow at Harvard Medical School (2005–2008)—supported by a postdoctoral fellowship of the Belgian American Educational Foundation (BAEF). At the cardiovascular laboratory of Richard Lee, Vincent worked on multiple projects including a project in which he studied myocyte renewal during normal aging and after myocardial injury using a genetic fate-mapping approach. He also invented new protease-resistant variants of Stromal cell-derived factor-1 (SDF1)—a discovery that resulted in the foundation of a start-up biotechnology company, called Provasculon, in 2008. Vincent managed the activities at Provasculon as Senior Director from 2008–2010; Provasculon was acquired by Mesoblast in 2013.

Between Oct 2010 and June 2015, he completed his cardiology training and training in interventional cardiology. In 2013, Vincent Segers was appointed assistant professor of physiology at the University of Antwerp and started to work on the NRG1/ERBB system together with Gilles De Keulenaer. They are interested in basic and translational science in the field of ventricular and atrial myopathy, and use methods ranging from molecular biology to large-animal models. The goal of their lab is to develop new therapies for common cardiovascular diseases, including heart failure.