Walter Fiers (31 January 1931 in Ypres, West Flanders – 28 July 2019 in Destelbergen)[1] was a Belgian molecular biologist.
At the California Institute of Technology Walter Fiers was exposed to Molecular Biology, which was then just developing, studying viral DNA.
[2] 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.
[5] The development of totally new procedures and knowledge led to the ability to clone almost any gene and to replicate these efficiently into bacteria or in other heterologous hosts.