Gerry Nicolaes (*12-05-1969, Maastricht) studied chemistry from 1987 till 1993 in Utrecht (the Netherlands), where he followed major subjects in Clinical Chemistry specialized in Biochemistry at the former Centre for Biomembranes and Lipid Enzymology with Prof. G. de Haas and Dr. B. Verheij.

From 1993 till 1997 he was a PhD student at the Biochemistry department of the Cardiovascular Research Institute Maastricht (CARIM), under the supervision of Dr. J. Rosing and Prof.  H.C. Hemker. In May 1997 a thesis was defended titled: "regulation of thrombin formation in normal and hypercoagulable states", which was awarded a "cum laude" (with honors).

After a short prolongation of the thesis work on oral contraceptives till March 1998, a position as a postdoc in the lab of Prof. Björn Dahlbäck (the Wallenberg Laboratory, University of Lund, Malmö in Sweden) was accepted, where the structure function studies on human blood coagulation factor V were continued, including recombinant DNA techniques and a brief exposure to structural bioinformatics, untill October 2000.

From October 2000 till present, the structure function studies on mainly coagulation factor V, and its regulation by the protein C anticoagulant system were continued at the Biochemistry Department of the CARIM institute in Maastricht after being granted a project grant and a successive VIDI grant to start an own research line, by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). Research since 2000 has largely moved along the lines of structural bioinformatics-driven structure function studies that include application of bioinformatics to obtain novel insights in protein structure and function, which is next experimentally tested by a combination of ´classical´ biochemical techniques as protein purification and characterization, enzyme kinetics, expression of recombinant variants of coagulation proteins.

Recently, through the fruitful collaboration with Dr. B. Villoutreix (University of Paris V, France) virtual ligand screening (VLS) approaches are being applied to the study of coagulation proteins, their regulation and their potential as targets for future therapies.