Patrick Cras, MD, PhD. was born on June 19^th, 1958 and graduated as an MD in 1983. His research mainly focuses on neurodegenerative disease such as Parkinson’s disease and dementia, with an emphasis on rapidly developing dementias such as prion disease and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Presently Chairman of the Department of Neurology of the Antwerp University Hospital and professor of neurology at the University of Antwerp, he trained as a research fellow in the Laboratory of Neuropathology at the Born Bunge Institute (IBB, 1983-1985) and in the pathology laboratory at the Antwerp University Hospital followed by a Fogarty Fellowship in neuropathology at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland Ohio (1989-1991). Back at the University of Antwerp, he developed the biomarkers diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). Biobanking of brains, DNA and CSF was started in collaboration with VIB (prof. C. Van Broeckhoven). In 1998 he initiated the surveillance center for human prion diseases in collaboration with Sciensano and the European Center for Disease Control. Our center performs CSF biomarker diagnosis for more than 500 patients per year. Close to all brain autopsies of patients with rapidly developing dementia suspected of CJD in Belgium are performed at the Antwerp University Hospital. He is the medical director of the IBB Biobank. He (co-)authored more than 300 international peer reviewed articles (21412 citations, h index 71, Google scholar 29/8/21). He was Chairman of the Ethics committee, Antwerp University Hospital (2000-2020) and University of Antwerp (2008-2020), a member of several committees of the High Council for Medicine (Hoge Gezondheidsraad), the National Bioethics Committee (Raadgevend Comité voor Bioethiek), previously chairman of the Belgian Board of Neurology and of the Neurology Committee of the Commission for Accreditation of Medical Doctors, as well as chairman of the European Board of Neurology (Union Européenne des Médecins Spécialistes) and Palliative Scientific Panel Chair of the European Academy of Neurology. His current research focuses on biomarkers, neuropathology and phenotype/genotype correlation of neurodegenerative diseases involving dementia and movement disorders. He has also lectured and published on the ethics of human experimentation, end-of-life decisions, euthanasia and research involving vulnerable subjects. He has served as principal investigator in numerous pharmaceutical industry sponsored studies with different compounds in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.