Professor Dr Claus Bachert

Claus Bachert is distinguished for many important contributions in the field of upper airway immunology, which he mostly made within the last 20 years from the Upper Airways Research Laboratory at Ghent University, which he founded and developed into a world renowned institution. He made major contributions to research into allergic rhinitis, viral rhinitis and chronic rhinosinusitis, but is best known for his seminal work on nasal polyposis. He first defined the disease subtypes biochemically and differentiated pheno- and endotypes with the aim to correlate these to the course of disease in order to predict prognosis and to establish personalized therapeutic approaches, making use of biologicals (e.g. humanized monoclonal antibodies). He also focused on the impact of germs, specifically Staphylococcus aureus, on chronic inflammatory airway disease in sinusitis and asthma, and continues to develop diagnostic as well as therapeutic tools for those severe diseases.