Speakers

Prof. François Boemer, PharmD, EuSpLM, PhD, is Head of the Newborn Screening Center and the Biochemical Genetics Laboratory at the University Hospital of Liège, Belgium. He also serves as an Assistant Lecturer at the University of Liège. 

Prof. Boemer has authored over 80 publications in international peer-reviewed journals. He is recognized as a European Specialist in Laboratory Medicine (EuSpLM), a Laboratory Supervisor in Medical Genetics by the Belgian Society of Human Genetics (BeSHG), and a Clinical Laboratory Geneticist by the European Council of Medical Genetics. 

He is a founding member of Metabolics.be (Belgian Society for the Study of Inborn Errors of Metabolism), and an active member of both the International Society for Neonatal Screening (ISNS) and the Royal Belgian Society of Laboratory Medicine (RBSLM). 

Prof. Boemer has played a leading role in the development of innovative methods for screening sickle cell disease and has been instrumental in implementing a newborn screening program for spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) in Southern Belgium. 

For several years, he has also been actively engaged in developing sequencing approaches tailored to neonatal screening. In this capacity, he co-leads the BabyDetect project, a recognized study assessing the acceptability and feasibility of genomic newborn screening.