Wilfried Verachtert
Wilfried Verachtert graduated as Lic. Informatics at the Brussels Free University. He continued his career as researcher at the Brussels Free University on Parallel Programming Languages. He did join a spin-off software company “MediaGenix” as partner & CTO. 14 years ago he joined imec as Group Director Digital Components. 7 years ago, he co-launched - and became the director of - the Exascience Life Lab, a collaboration between Imec, Intel, Janssen Pharmaceutic and the 6 Flemish universities to do applied research on High Performance Computing for Life Sciences. Since May this year, became PMTS (Principal Member of the Technical Staff) Data & AI at Imec to work on the longer term vision of Data and AI.
Authored articles
When will doctors and specialists really be able to use DNA-sequencing in their practices?
Today, sequencing the whole human genome costs around $1000. Yet within the foreseeable future, this figure will be reduced to $100 or even $10. But are these figures realistic? Because they don’t take account of the cost involved with preparing the sample for sequencing – or of processing the data afterward. “Imec is finding ways of making the steps before and after the sequencing process cheaper and faster,” say imec’s Liesbet Lagae and Wilfried Verachtert. “That way, physicians or specialists will be able to read out genetic profiles in just a couple of hours. This will mean prescribing the right treatment more quickly, which is vital, for example, in the case of cancer.”
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