Jan Verbakel

Jan Verbakel is Senior Lecturer and Professor of Family Medicine at the Academic Center for General Practice, KU Leuven, Belgium, and serves as Vice Dean of Education in the Faculty of Medicine. He is a co-founder of LUHTAR (Leuven Unit for Health Technology Assessment Research) and the EPI-Centre, and an active member of Leuven One Health Institute.

Education & Training

While explicit degrees are not listed, Dr Verbakel’s role as practice trainer and extensive research leadership imply advanced clinical and research training in family medicine and primary-care epidemiology.

Research Interests

His work centres on improving primary-care diagnostics and antimicrobial stewardship, with major foci on:

• Point-of-care C-reactive protein testing to reduce inappropriate antibiotic prescribing in children and adults.
• Development and validation of risk-prediction models for serious infections and gynaecological cancers.
• Health technology assessment of diagnostic innovations, including smart spirometry and microfluidic sampling devices.
• COVID-19 epidemiology, post-COVID rehabilitation and antimicrobial resistance.

Publication Trends

Across the past decade Dr Verbakel has published high-impact studies in The Lancet, BMJ, NEJM and Archives of Disease in Childhood. His articles cluster around 1) large-scale population-based cohort analyses of autoimmune and cardiovascular comorbidity, 2) systematic reviews and RCTs evaluating point-of-care biomarkers in primary care, and 3) COVID-19 prediction models and policy critiques.

Scientific Awards & Recognition

Specific prizes are not detailed in the supplied text; however, his national role as chair of the 2016 INAMI consensus meeting on rational antibiotic use in children and his extensive international collaborations underscore significant peer recognition.

Grants & Projects

He currently leads or co-leads several competitively funded projects:

• ARON project – multicentre trial on rapid CRP testing in children (promoter).
• microBAT – microfluidic sampling cartridge development (co-promoter).
• SARS-CoV-2 nursing-home study – epidemiology and intervention (promoter).
• Smart spirometry for GPs – HTA of AI-supported lung function testing (promoter).

Labs & Teams

Dr Verbakel spearheads interdisciplinary teams within LUHTAR and the EPI-Centre, integrating clinicians, health economists, statisticians and methodologists to conduct robust health-technology assessments and pragmatic clinical trials embedded in routine Belgian primary care.