Mini-symposium organized on the occasion of the UGent honorary doctorate given by the Faculty of Sciences to Prof. Vishva Dixit

Dr. Vishva Mitra Dixit, born in 1956 in Kenya, is a Kenyan‑American physician and internationally recognized researcher. He graduated from the University of Nairobi in 1980 with a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery, after which he continued his medical training and research at Washington University in St. Louis, studying the biochemistry of thrombospondin under Prof. William Frazier.

In 1986, he joined the University of Michigan Medical School as an assistant professor, later rising to full professor. By 1994, he had shifted his research focus toward the mechanisms of cell death and inflammation. Dr. Dixit moved to Genentech in 1997 as Director of Molecular Oncology. He became head of the Department of Physiological Chemistry in 2009 and, in 2016, was appointed Vice President of Discovery Research. In this role, he also led Genentech’s postdoctoral program, mentoring and supporting numerous postdoctoral researchers worldwide in advancing fundamental studies on cell death and inflammation.

The work of Dr. Dixit and his team has led to foundational discoveries in TNF and LPS signaling, the regulation of NF‑κB, and the roles of key molecules such as A20, caspases, and RIPK1. They have also made major contributions to understanding canonical and non‑canonical inflammasome activation, as well as the biology of pore‑forming proteins including the gasdermins and NINJ1. His research has strong and longstanding connections to ongoing studies of cell death and inflammation at UGent.

 

Program:

  • 12u45 – 13u00: Isabel Van Driessche (Dean of the UGent Faculty of Sciences): Welcome
  • 13u00 – 13u15: Peter Vandenabeele (UGent, Belgium): Life and death, an intricate relationship
  • 13u15 – 14u00: Vishva Dixit (Genentech, USA): Why so many ways to Die?
  • 14u00 – 14u30: Mohamed Lamkanfi (Ghent University, Belgium): Cell death-inflammation crosstalk in inflammatory monocytes
  • 14u30 – 15u00: Katia Cosentino (Osnabrück University, Germany), with financial support of the IMHS program of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences Gasdermin Pores in Inflammatory Cell Death
  • 15u00 – 15u30: Geert van Loo (UGent, Belgium): HA20 and ORAS: mechanistic insights in human diseases through mouse models.
  • 15u30 - 16u00: coffee break
  • 16u00 – 16u30: Nieves Peltzer (University of Stuttgart, Germany), with financial support of the IMHS program of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences Divergent effects of inflammation with and without cell death in metabolic syndrome
  • 16u30 – 17u00: Tom vanden Berghe (Antwerp University, Belgium): Ferroptosis inhibition: a new frontier in organ transplantation.
  • 17u00 – 17u30: Frank Van Breusegem (Ghent University, Belgium): Decoding Plant Metacaspase Functions: From Proteolytic Signatures to Cell Fate Control
  • 17u30 – 18u00: Vishva Dixit (Genentech, USA): Genentech Postdoctoral Program - an engine for innovation
  • 18u00 – 19u30: reception

 

Practical info:

  • When: Thursday March 19th 2026 
  • Where: Seminar room of the FSVM I building, Technologiepark-Zwijnaarde 71, 9052 Gent 
  • Registration (from 02-02-2026 12:00 until 16-03-2026 12:00)