Albert Goldbeter


Albert Goldbeter is a Belgian theoretical biologist who is professor emeritus in the Faculty of Sciences, Université libre de Bruxelles, Belgium.

Biography

Goldbeter was born May 18, 1947, in Uccle, Belgium. After completing his studies in chemistry, including a doctorate in the group of Prof. Ilya Prigogine at the Université libre de Bruxelles, Belgium, he was an EMBO postdoctoral fellow at the Weizmann Institute, Rehovot, Israel where he worked with Profs. Roy Caplan and Lee Segel before returning to the ULB. He then spent another period working with Prof. Daniel Koshland at the University of California. He was a professor at ULB until his retirement in 2012 and is currently an emeritus Professor at ULB. During his career he has held visiting Professorships at the University of California, Paris VI and Paris XI, and in China at Fudan University in Shanghai, Nanjing Agricultural University, and Soochow University in Suzhou.

Research

Goldbeter's research has focused primarily on modeling a variety of biological oscillations at the cellular level. 
He proposed experimentally based molecular models for the circadian clock in Drosophila and mammals, and for the mammalian cell cycle. In collaboration with Daniel Koshland he analyzed the phenomenon of zero-order ultrasensitivity in biochemical systems regulated through phosphorylation-dephosphorylation.
For his work on the mathematical modeling of biological processes, he was awarded the 2010 Quinquennial Prize for Exact Fundamental Sciences from the Belgian National Science Foundation. He is a member and former Director of the Classe des Sciences of the Académie Royale de Belgique.

Books