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Photo of Raphaël Helaers

Raphaël Helaers

Maître de recherche

SSS/DDUV Institut de Duve (DDUV)

SSS/DDUV/GEHU Génétique (GEHU)

DEXT/UTE/ADUV Institut De Duve (ADUV)

  • Expertise :
  • bioinformatics
  • it
  • hpc
  • mass storage
  • genomics
  • ngs
  • gui
  • java
  • mysql
  • linux
  • algorithmics
  • phylogenetics

I am a bioinformatician with a strong expertise in Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) and software development, and a deep interest in biology, genetics and evolution. With a master of computer sciences, I began working in the lab of Michel Milinkovitch at ULB, for which I developed a LIMS (Laboratory Information Management System). As the lab focus was on evolutionary biology, I engaged in two projects that allowed me to dive into molecular biology. In the first, I implemented meta-heuristics within a comprehensive software for phylogeny inference. In the latter I built a phylogenetic framework for multi-species genome comparisons. I completed my PhD thesis on these two fields at the UNamur, where I worked with Pr. Éric Depiereux. Since 2010, I have worked in the lab of Pr. Miikka Vikkula at de Duve Institute (UCLouvain), where I manage bioinformatics for the Next Generation Sequencing platform and provide bioinformatics support for the de Duve Institute. Here, I developed my expertise in NGS data analysis and human genetics, culminating in the implementation of an easy-to-use but complete software for variant filtering that has allowed geneticists to discover numerous new mutations in rare human diseases.

Year Label School
2010 Facultés Universitaires Notre Dame de la Paix à Namur (Belgique)
2004 Université Libre de Bruxelles (Belgique)