Jan Steyaert leads the overall strategic direction of the Xaperones unit and oversees communications, partnership, project development and finance.

Jan is a full professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Jan Steyaert made his Ph.D. at the protein engineering department of Plant Genetic Systems (currently Bayer Crop science). After a postdoc at the International Livestock Research Institute (Nairobi, Kenya), he joined the laboratory of Structural Biology of Lode Wyns. Recent work focusses on the build out of the Xaperones discovery platform and its applications for the structural and functional investigation of the most challenging protein targets. 

Jan Steyaert holds a Ph.D in Applied Biological Sciences from the VUB. He is currently director of the Structural Biology Brussels lab and also groupleader of the Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie (VIB). Together with Serge Muyldermans, Jan Steyaert was one of the founders of Ablynx, a biotech spin-off of the VUB and the VIB.

Els Pardon runs a Xaperones discovery team that produces crystallization chaperones for in house projects and for our academic partners. 

Els obtained her PhD in 1996 at at the Interdisciplinair Research Center of the KUL campus Kortrijk. In 1998 she joined Jan Steyaerts group as a postdoc to work on protein stability of industrial enzymes. In 2002 she moved to the group of Serge Muyldermans to work on camelid antibodies, where she focused on the discovery of nanobodies against aggregating proteins.Since 2007, she is working in the Steyaert to produce Xaperones against integral membrane proteins, including GPCRs.

Toon laeremans is responsable for our Xaperones discovery programs with industry.

Toon obtained his PhD in 1998 at the Centre of Microbial and Plant Genetics, KULeuven. After a postdoc in the group of Prof. Serge Muyldermans, he joined Ablynx N.V. in 2002 where he was involved in multiple antibody discovery programs. Between 2007 and 2010, he was responsible for all immunization programs at Ablynx. Since June 1st 2010, Toon Laeremans joined the Xaperones team.

He has more than 10 years of  experience on single domain antibody discovery against a wide array of target classes including multi-transmembrane spanning proteins such as GPCRs and ion channels and is inventor on multiple patents.