Jean-Marie Ghuysen

Jean-Marie Ghuysen began his career in the general and medical microbiology unit of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Liège, directed by Professor Maurice Welsch between 1951 and 1956. With the support of IRSIA (FRIA) and Laboratoires Labaz, he studied bacteriolytic enzymes known to be part of the actinomycetin secreted by certain Streptomyces. His team quickly identified and separated several proteolytic activities and bacteriolytic enzymes. Two enzyme fractions were studied in depth and found to have different peptidase activities on bacterial cell walls. In 1957, he became head of a biochemistry and microbiology unit at Laboratoires Labaz. The results gathered over a period of 6 years were published in 12 articles which constituted his Agrégé de l'Enseignement Supérieur en Sciences Pharmaceutiques thesis.

In January 1958, he resigned and returned to university, where he concentrated his research on determining the chemical structure of bacterial cell walls, using the various bacteriolytic enzymes he had previously purified and characterized. He went on to become Assistant Professor (1958), Head of Department (1958-1959), Associate Professor (1959-1961), Associate Lecturer (1961-1966), Associate Professor (1966-1969) and Ordinary Professor at the University of Liège School of Pharmacy (1969). During this period, he collaborated actively with numerous researchers in related fields; his collaborations with Milton Salton (structure), Jack Strominger (biosynthesis) and Gerald Shockman (lythic enzymes) were particularly fruitful and formed the main basis of the research he carried out until 1975, which made an essential contribution to understanding the chemical structure of the bacterial cell wall. It was in 1966, at a round table organized during a Symposium of the American Chemical Society, that he proposed using the term "peptidoglycan" to define the macromolecule that forms the skeleton of the cell wall and is the target of autolysins and other lytic enzymes.

In 1969, he formed a group of local researchers including Mélina Leyh-Bouille, Jacques Coyette, Martine Distèche, Jean Dusart and Jean-Marie Frère. In 1976, the team contributed to a major breakthrough in the field by demonstrating that penicillin acylates a serine residue in one of the D-alanyl-D-alanine carboxytranspeptidases of penicillin-sensitive Streptomyces (FEBS Letters, 1976). In 1978, the first complete structure of a D-alanyl-D-alanine carboxypeptidase was solved in Liège. It was the first three-dimensional structure of a protein to be solved in Belgium. At this time, Jean-Marie Ghuysen also felt the need for theoretical approaches; Georges Dive and Josette Lamotte joined the team and set up a group specializing in molecular modeling and quantum chemistry. The team is now multidisciplinary, covering fields such as microbiology, enzymology, crystallography and theoretical chemistry, with the arrival of new collaborators: Jean Dusart, Paulette Charlier, Bernard Joris and Colette Duez.

In 1990, at the normal retirement age, he and his colleagues set up the Centre for Protein Engineering within the Faculty of Science. The Rector of the University, Professor Arthur Bodson, appointed him as the Center's first Director, a position he held until the age of 70, before continuing as a scientific advisor. Since 1990, the Centre d'Ingénierie de Protéines has flourished, and in 2010 includes over one hundred scientists, technicians and trainees. Jean-Marie Ghuysen has left a lasting imprint on Belgian and international science through his numerous publications: "Medline" lists 221 of them, often in prestigious periodicals

Jean-Marie Ghuysen possessed an encyclopedic knowledge of microbiology and biochemistry. He was generous with his time, always available to discuss their results or scientific problems with his young collaborators, which frequently led to the emergence of productive new ideas. In 1950, he married Jeanine Defourny (1925-2003). They had three children: two daughters (Véronique, a historian, and Colette, a gynecologist) and a son (Vincent, a specialist in nuclear medicine). Throughout his life, Jean-Marie Ghuysen collected an impressive number of prestigious awards (see below). Jean-Marie Ghuysen died of septicemia on August 31, 2004.

• Stas-Spring Prize
• Louis Empain Prize
• Winner of the Canada Gairdner International Award
• FNRS Joseph Maisin Prize
• Prix de l’Innovation Technologique de la Région wallonne (partagé avec quatre de ses collaborateurs)
• Gairdner Foundation International Prize in Medical Sciences
• Carlos J. Finlay UNESCO Prize in Microbiology
• Albert Einstein Prize
• Bristol-Myers Squibb Prize

Member of :

• royal Academy of Sciences, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium
• l'Academia Europeae, de l'EMBO,
• belgian Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (Vice-Chairman and Chairman)
• of FORBITEC
• of the Mucoviscidose Scientific Interest Group
• of the American Siociety of Microbiology
• of the Biochemical Society
• of theNew York Academy of Sciences
• of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
• of the Royal Academy of Belgium (correspondent on January 9, 1988 and full member on January 9, 1989)
• academy of Médecine (correspondent on November 28, 1980, titular on May 28, 1983)
• He was Grand Officer of the Order of Leopold and Grand Officer of the Order of the Crown, as well as Doctor Honoris Causa of the Universities of Nancy, Debrecen and Montreal.