XML4Pharma
Home Services CDISC Software About us

About the people

Jos Aerts

Jozef (Jos) Aerts is the founder of XML4Pharma and Computer Chemistry Consultancy.

.

Jozef's network on LinkedIn

Jozef Aerts received his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry and Crystallography at the University of Leuven (Belgium) in 1983. After his military service he joined Akzo Corporate Research in Arnhem (the Netherlands) in 1984, where he was section leader of the X-Ray and Crystallography group. During this time he developed a large number of methods for the structure elucidation of crystalline fibers (see publications).

The main library of the K.U.Leuven

Akzo Nobel logo In 1991 he joined the newly formed Computational Chemistry Group of Akzo Nobel Central Research, first as co-worker and later as section leader. He became a world-wide recognised expert in the area of molecular modeling, and in this position developed a number of new methods and the required software. Within Akzo Nobel, he became the company's major internal consultant for computer chemistry and molecular modeling, helping many business units in setting up computer chemistry applications and infrastructure.

In 1998, he started developing web-applications to make computational chemistry software better available through the company's world wide intranet. This made the use of computational chemistry software much more cost-efficient. In order to achieve this, he started learning Java in his spare time, and soon became the Java and web applications expert within Akzo Nobel.

Java logo
Organon logo

After Akzo Nobel Central Research ceased to exist, he became coordinator for Scientific Applications at ISD, the Information Services Department of Organon, Netherlands largest pharmaceutical company, and at that time, Europe's fastest growing. In this position he was also responsible for software technology innovation. He introduced Object Orientation and XML in this company, and also initiated the use of Java (especially in conjuction with Oracle databases - JDeveloper), and of application servers for intranet applications.

In the first half of 2001, he emigrated to Switzerland and started his own companies:

XML4Pharma and Computer Chemistry Consultancy



During the startup time of his company, he also worked parttime in the "Computational & Systems Biology" group of prof. Schwede at the University of Basel (Biozentrum), helping setting up the software infrastructure of the group, and writing many bioinformatics programs for use in the group.

In the last 10 years, he gained an enormous amount of experience in the development, use and implementation of (XML-based) standards for healthcare in general, and particularly for clinical research.
Since 2002, he is an extremely active CDISC volunteer, having made major contributions to the CDISC ODM standard (where he is one of the main developers), with also contributions to other CDISC standards, such as define.xml and CDASH.
Currently, he is strongly involved in the development of the new "Study Design Model" standard (an extension to the ODM standard), and into the development of the "Submission Metadata Implementation Guide".

Overall, Jozef Aerts has over 35 years of experience in development of technical and scientific software, especially in the area of organic and physical chemistry, and in healthcare and clinical research.

List of Publications and Presentations of Jozef Aerts


Contact XML4Pharma
XML4Pharma, Griesegg 39, 6464 Tarrenz, Austria