Désiré Collen

Désiré José Louis, Baron Collen is a Belgian emeritus professor of KU Leuven Faculty of Medicine, physician, chemist and biotech-entrepreneur. He made a variety of discoveries in the field of thrombosis, hemostasis and vascular biology. He gained international prominence in the 1980s and 1990s for the discovery of the potential of t-PA as a life-saving drug for patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) or heart attack, and cerebrovascular incidents (CVA) or stroke. Collen demonstrated that the enzyme t-PA, due to its high affinity for fibrin, dissolves blood clots in a patient's body, with less disruption of the overall blood clotting system than the previously available streptokinase. As a result, side effects such as heavy bleeding are markedly reduced. Through collaboration with the American company Genentech Inc., rt-PA was in the early eighties developed into one of the first genetically cloned drugs. Désiré Collen played a major role in the development of t-PA from a laboratory concept to a widely used life-saving drug. He has been rewarded with honorary degrees and awards for his work, and in 2013 he was awarded hereditary nobility with the personal title of baron by the then Belgian King Albert II.