XML4PHARMA - Key Persons
Jozef (Jos) Aerts is the founder of XML4Pharma and Computer Chemistry Consultancy.
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).
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.
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: