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Walter Fiers was born in Ieper (Belgium) in 1931. He obtained a degree of Engineer for Chemistry and Agricultural Industries at the University of Ghent in 1954, and started his research career as an enzymologist in the laboratory of Laurent Vandendriessche in Ghent. In 1956-57, he worked with Heinz Holter in Copenhagen (Denmark). In 1960, he obtained a fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation and joined the group of Bob Sinsheimer as a postdoc. At the Rockefeller Foundation Walter Fiers was exposed to Molecular Biology, which was then just developing, studying viral DNA. He demonstrated the physical, covalently closed circularity of Bacteriophage PhiX-174 DNA. In 1962, Fiers moved to Madison, Wisconsin, to work in the laboratory of future Nobel laureate, Gobind Khorana.

At the end of 1962, Fiers returned to Belgium and set up the Laboratory of Molecular Biology at the University of Ghent. His research involved Bacteriophage MS2; he was the first to establish the complete nucleotide sequence of a gene (1972) and of a viral genome (bacteriophage MS2)(1976). In 1987 Fiers and his team determined the complete nucleotide-sequence of SV40. The development of totally new procedures and knowledge led to the ability to clone almost any gene and to express these efficiently in bacteria or in other heterologous hosts.

In 1997 Fiers retired and became Professor Emeritus, and the following year he retired from his position as director of the Laboratory. Walter Fiers was awarded the Francqui Prize for Exact Sciences in 1976. In 1989 he was awarded the Carlos J. Finlay Prize for Microbiology, and the Artois-Baillet Latour Health Prize.

• Fiers, W., and R. L. Sinsheimer, The structure of the DNA of bacteriophage PhiX 174. III. Ultracentrifuge evidence for a ring structure, J. Mol. Biol. 5:424-434, 1962
• Fiers W, Contreras R, Haegemann G, Rogiers R, Van de Voorde A, Van Heuverswyn H, Van Herreweghe J, Volckaert G, Ysebaert M., Complete nucleotide-sequence of SV40 DNA, Nature, 273, 113-120, 1978
• Fiers W, Contreras R, Duerinck F, Haegeman G, Iserentant D, Merregaert J, Min Jou W, Molemans F, Raeymaekers A, Van den Berghe A, Volckaert G, Ysebaert M., Complete nucleotide-sequence of bacteriophage MS2-RNA - primary and secondary structure of replicase gene, Nature, 260, 500-507, 1976
• Min Jou W, Haegeman G, Ysebaert M, Fiers W., Nucleotide sequence of the gene coding for the bacteriophage MS2 coat protein, Nature. 1972 May 12;237(5350):82-8.
• Remaut E et al., Plasmid vectors for high-efficiency expression controlled by the PL promoter of coliphage-lambda, Gene, 15, 81-93, 1981

• Flemish Interuniversity Institute of Biotechnology (VIB)
• Frederick Sanger

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