IRT2010

   It is a pleasure to announce that the recipient of the Montgomery Award is Professor Erik De Clercq of the Rega Institute in Leuven, Belgium. Erik is well known to many of us based upon his many collaborative research projects. He also hosted two International Round Tables, in 1994 and 2002. He was a collaborator and friend of John Montgomery for many years, and his approach to antiviral drug development clearly embodies the spirit and approach of Dr. Montgomery.

   Erik grew up in a small Flemish city in Belgium and went to Leuven, where he obtained both his M. D. degree and his Ph. D. His Ph. D. work was entitled “Mechanism of the antiviral activity of synthetic polyanions, and his advisor was Prof. Pierre de Somer, who at the time both Director of the Rega Institute for Medical Research and President of the University. In the late 60’s Erik spent two years with Prof. T. C. Merigan at Stanford University, after which he returned to Leuven to become first a Research Associate, then Docent, Professor, and by 1977 full Professor at the Medical School of the University of Leuven. He has been a department chair several times, and he was for some years the Chair of the Directory Board of the Rega Institute of Leuven University.

   Erik has been a visiting professor at a number of locations around the world, and he has given lectures on antiviral chemotherapy in many hundreds of places. He has been awarded honorary degrees at the University of Ghent, the Czech Academy of Sciences, and the University of Ferrara in Italy. He has received numerous awards including the Otto Krayer award for Pharmacology in 2001, the Hamao Umezawa Memorial Award from the International Society of Chemotherapy, the Blaise Pascal Medal for Science and Technology of the European Academy of Sciences. Indicative of Erik’s commitment to collaborative antiviral chemotherapy, he along with his colleagues and collaborators Drs. Balzarini, Holy, Camarasa, McGuigan, Karlsson and Perno were awarded the Rene Descartes Prize, the highest award bestowed by the European Union, for Scientific and Technological Excellence in European Collaborative Research. In 2005 Erik was the recipient of the Elion Award of the International Society for Antiviral Research, and he also is one of the few recipients of the ISAR Award of Excellence for making truly outstanding contributions to the field of antiviral research.

   Erik’s research interests span the range of antiviral chemotherapy, and are well known to all of us. Together with Tony Holy, a previous Montgomery Award winner, Erik is responsible for the discovery of adefovir, cidofovir and tenofovir, three drugs currently marked by Gilead Sciences, Inc. As a result of Erik’s many collaborations and the research efforts in his laboratory, Erik has well over 2000 publications. His accomplishments made him an obvious choice to receive the Montgomery Award.