Klaas Vandepoele

Klaas Vandepoele is a Professor at Ghent University and VIB Group Leader at the VIB-UGent Center for Plant Systems Biology since 2018. He holds a PhD in Plant Biotechnology from Ghent University (2005) and completed postdoctoral research at Ghent University (2005–2011) and the Observatoire Océanologique de Banyuls (2006–2007). His research focuses on computational regulomics, integrating experimental and computational methods to map gene regulatory networks in plants like Arabidopsis, wheat, and maize. Key areas include transcription factor-target gene identification, comparative genomics of non-coding sequences, and expanding network analysis to dicots and cereals.

Notably awarded the prestigious ERC Advanced Grant, his work bridges computational biology with plant genetics, advancing tools like DiatOmicBase for functional omics analysis in diatoms. His lab collaborates on projects such as single-cell wheat root atlases and CRISPR-based metabolic engineering in crops. The team includes postdocs and PhD students specializing in bioinformatics, genomics, and molecular biology.