Laurens Ceulemans has been a staff thoracic surgeon at UZ Leuven since 2019 and was appointed Director of the Leuven Lung Transplant Centre in 2024. This centre ranks among the world’s leading institutions in the field, performing approximately 80 lung transplants annually. As an academic surgeon-scientist, Prof. Dr. Ceulemans is committed to advancing the field of transplantation through the development and clinical implementation of innovative strategies rooted in both clinical and fundamental research.
Clinically, he has pioneered several novel surgical techniques and is currently leading clinical trials aimed at improving organ preservation. He also holds the position of associate professor at the BREATHE lab at KU Leuven, where he leads a research group focused on experimental and translational lung transplantation. His team has established multiple small-animal models to study transplantation and ischemia-reperfusion injury.
A central ambition of his work is to innovate in the field of genetic immunomodulation, with the goal of preventing organ rejection and significantly reducing the need for systemic immunosuppression—one of the major challenges in long-term transplant success.