Joost Schymkowitz is a Belgian structural biologist and biophysicist, and Vice Director of the VIB–KU Leuven Center for Brain & Disease Research. He is also a Full Professor at the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at KU Leuven and co-founder of the Switch Laboratory, which he leads together with Frederic Rousseau.

After earning his PhD in Chemistry from the University of Cambridge and completing postdoctoral research at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Joost established the Switch Laboratory together with Frederic, conducting research that bridges molecular biophysics, structural biology, and computational modeling. Their work explores how proteins fold, misfold, and aggregate, and how these processes drive neurodegenerative and systemic diseases. Together they pioneered the study of heterotypic amyloid interactions and the thermodynamic logic of protein aggregation, combining cryo-EM, multi-omics, and predictive algorithms to decode how misfolded proteins shape cellular health. Their team has taken an integrative approach, spanning in silico modeling, mechanistic biophysics, and the analysis of human tissue.

Joost has co-authored over 230 peer-reviewed papers, and is an inventor on more than 20 patents covering protein aggregation, design, and therapeutic applications. His translational efforts include co-founding the biotech companies Aelin Therapeutics and Dualyx, and establishing BE.Amycon, the Belgian Amyloidosis Consortium, which unites clinicians, patients, and researchers in a national framework for amyloidosis research and care.