Dr. Esther Hoste is Assistant Professor at the Department of Biomedical Molecular Biology at the VIB-UGent Center for Inflammation Research. She received her PhD degree from Ghent University on the role of caspase-14 in skin cornification and performed postdoctoral studies at Cambridge University and King’s College London to study how skin inflammation impacts wound repair and tumour formation. Her research team studies the cellular and molecular crosstalk between keratinocytes and their microenvironment in repair, inflammation and neoplastic transformation using innovative mouse transgenesis and systems level transcriptomics approaches.

In recognition of her contributions to dermatology research, Esther Hoste received the LEO Foundation Award EMEA in 2022.