The Belgian Association for Tissue and Cell Banks aims to associate all individuals involved in tissue banking throughout Belgium. The main aim of the organization is to provide teaching and training activities for its members and to promote quality and safety assurance in the field of cell and tissue banking for human therapeutic use.

Our board consists of:

		Ineke Vanlaere obtained her PhD in biotechnology at the Ghent University (VIB) in 2009. Immediately after that, she started working as scientific employee of the bone bank and stem cell bank of the AZ Sint-Jan Brugge-Oostende AV hospital. In addition to the scientific part, she is strongly committed to the quality side of these banks. She became board member of the BVWB-ABBT in 2011. Since 2016, she is also president of this association.
		Franky Sinap started working in 1994 as Medical Laboratory Technician of the Processing Laboratory and Cord blood bank of the University Hospital of Leuven where he became Quality Manager since 2006.  In 2018 he became board member of the BVWB-ABBT.
		Jessy Lardon studied Biomedical Sciences and obtained a PhD in Medical Sciences at the VUB in 2005, where she subsequently held a post-doc position. In 2009 she started as scientific collaborator in the hematopoietic stem cell bank of ZNA Stuivenberg in Antwerp, where she has been Processing Facility Director since 2010. Since 2011 Jessy has been a board member of the BVWB-ABBT.
		Philippe Lewalle MD, PhD leads the allogeneic stem cell program at the Jules Bordet Institute, Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB). As director of the Cellular Therapy and GMP Cell Processing facilities, he is responsible of hematopoietic stem cells, antigen specific lymphocytes, dendritic cells and mesenchymal stem cells production and banking. Doctor Lewalle attended medical school at the Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL). He subsequently trained in Internal Medecine and Hematology. This was followed by a research fellowship at the NHLBI, NIH Bethesda, in the Laboratory of Allogeneic Stem Cell Transplantation where he developed an interest in immunotherapy and graft versus leukemia reactions in CML and AML. In 1996 he moved to the Jules Bordet Institute to continue his work in both the clinic and the laboratory. In recent years he has developed an interest in haploidentical stem cell transplantation. All his research goal have a clinical focus with a particular emphasis on the development of active or adoptive immunotherapy by translation of basic science into appropriate clinical protocols. Long-term objective include the identification of biomarkers of the leukemia immune microenvironnement  and markers predictive of immunotherapy response.
		Jean-François Collard is the Operational Director of Bones and Tissues Bank of Erasme Hospital (Brussels) since January 2014, where he works for 8 years. He obtained a PhD in Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the Université Libre de Bruxelles where he is a researcher for more than 15 years in Orthopedics Research Laboratory. He is author and co-author of several publications and member of different National and International Scientific Societies.
		Greet Van Wichelen is assistant quality manager of the Medical Laboratories and Human Body Material Banks of the Brussels University Hospital since 2017. She obtained a master in Biomedical Science at the VUB (2001). In 2020 she became a board member of the BVWB-ABBT.
		Sarah Glorieux obtained a master degree in Bioscience Engineering in 2004 at the Ghent University. She obtained her Ph.D. in Veterinary Sciences in 2009. In 2014, she started working as scientific collaborator / quality coordinator at the Tissue bank of the Ghent University Hospital. In 2015, she obtained a certificate “Quality assurance in a biomedical, biotechnological and pharmaceutical environment” at KU Leuven.  In 2022 she became a board member of the BVWB-ABBT.

You can contact our board members directly by selecting their name in the table below.