Johan Neyts (CV) is full professor of Virology at the University of Leuven (KU Leuven), Belgium where he teaches virology at the medical school and at the school of dentistry. His laboratory of Virology and Antiviral Research has a long-standing expertise in the development of antiviral strategies and drugs against emerging and neglected viral infections such as dengue and other flaviviruses, Chikungunya and other alphaviruses, enteroviruses, noroviruses, HDV, HEV, rabies and coronaviruses. An ultrapotent pan-serotype dengue inhibitor developed in his laboratory and at the Centre for Drug Design & Development (CD3) is currently in phase II clinical studies at Johnson & Johnson and efficacy has recently been shown in dengue-infected humans. A second focus, together with Prof. Kai Dallmeier, is on the development of the PLLAV (Plasmid Launched Live Attenuated Virus) vaccine technology, which is based on the yellow fever virus vaccine as a vector. It allows to rapidly engineer highly thermostable vaccines against multiple viral pathogens. The  KU Leuven spin-off AstriVax of which Johan is co-founder, is further developing this novel vaccine technology (currently in phase 1 studies). Johan is also co-founder of, and responsible for, the Belgian VirusBank platform (Tools for Epidemic and Pandemic Preparedness). He is past president of the International Society for Antiviral Research. He published ~670 papers, received multiple national and international awards, has given ~360 invited lectures and a large number of interviews to lay-press.