About the author

Erik De Clercq

Erik De Clercq has been Chairman of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the Katholieke Universiteit (KU) Leuven (Belgium) and Chairman of the Directory Board of the Rega Institute for Medical Research. He is President of the Rega Foundation (Belgium). As a full professor since 1977, he has been teaching the courses of cell biology, biochemistry, microbiology and virology at the KU Leuven Medical School (Belgium). He is a director of the Belgian Royal Academy of Medicine and a member of the Academia Europaea. De Clercq's scientific interests are in the antiviral chemotherapy field, and in particular, the development of new agents for various viral infections, including herpes simplex virus (HSV), varicella-zoster virus, cytomegalovirus (CMV) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). He has co-discovered several drugs that are used for the treatment of HSV (valaciclovir), herpes zoster (brivudin), CMV (cidofovir), hepatitis B (adefovir dipivoxil) and AIDS (tenofovir disoproxil fumarate, marketed as Viread, and, in combination with emtricitabine, as Truvada, and in combination with emtricitabine and efavirenz, as Atripla).