Prof. Geert René Willem Mortier

Prof. Geert Mortier is a distinguished clinical geneticist and full professor at KU Leuven, Belgium. Born in Blankenberge in 1963, he completed his medical training at Ghent University and subsequently specialised in Pediatrics at the Ghent University Hospital. He pursued a fellowship in Medical Genetics at the renowned Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, University of California Los Angeles, under Prof. DL Rimoin, laying the foundation for an internationally acclaimed career in skeletal dysplasias and growth disorders.

Since 2022, Prof. Mortier serves as Director of the Centre of Human Genetics at University Hospital Leuven and Full Professor in the Department of Human Genetics at KU Leuven. Prior to this, he held the position of Chairman of the Department of Medical Genetics at Antwerp University Hospital (2010–2021) and Head of the Program on Rare Diseases at the same institution (2014–2021), where he was also the Spokesperson of GENOMED – Center of Excellence.

His research focuses on growth disorders and skeletal dysplasias, and he has authored over 246 peer-reviewed scientific publications with an h-index of 64. He is a Council Member of the International Skeletal Dysplasia Society (since 2001) and Vice-president since 2024, and an expert partner in the European Reference Networks for rare bone disorders (BOND) and rare congenital anomalies (ITHACA). He chairs the Flemish Network for rare bone disorders since 2017.

Prof. Mortier holds board certifications in both Pediatrics and Clinical Genetics and earned his Doctorate in Medical Sciences cum maxima laude from Ghent University in 1999. He is an affiliated professor at Kasturba Medical College, Manipal University, India, reflecting his deep engagement with the global medical genetics community.