Lebenslauf
Professor Johan Bellemans, MD, PhD, Dr. Med., is former head of the Orthopaedic and Traumatology Department at the Catholic University Hospitals Leuven, and current Consultant Surgeon at the Vesalius Hospitals Tongeren (Belgium), and medical director of GRIT Sports Clinic and ArthroClinic Leuven (Belgium).
His practice focusses on primary as well as complex knee surgery, including knee arthroplasty and sports orthopaedics.
His academic career started in 1997 with the public defence of his PhD thesis “Osseointegration in porous coated knee arthroplasty”. At the age of 33, he became the youngest professor in surgery that was ever nominated at the Catholic University Leuven.
Several of the recent insights on knee pathology are attributed to him and his group.
His work on the influence of “posterior condylar offset” induced a breakthrough in understanding the frequent problem of limited flexion after knee arthroplasty.
His further work on kinematics of the natural and replaced knee was the basis for several of the contemporary knee arthroplasty designs.
The description in 2013 of the anterolateral ligament of the knee by him and his group was international headline news all over the world.
His most recent contribution is on limb alignment and knee osteoarthritis, and more specifically the understanding of constitutional alignment and knee phenotypes, as expressed in the CPAK-classification.
Prof. Bellemans is one of the few surgeons in the world that were awarded with each of the 3 prestigious prizes by the American Knee Society: the ‘John Insall Award’ in 2007, the ‘Chitranjan Ranawat Award’ in 2009, and the ‘Marc Coventry Award’ in 2015.
Prof. Bellemans is also past-president of the European Knee Society.
Prof. Bellemans was also the Medical Director of the Belgian Olympic Team for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, and has served also as Medical Director for the 2021 Olympic Games in Tokyo, the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, the 2012 Olympic Games in London, and the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, as well as for the Winter Olympic Games in Pyeong-Chang 2018 and Beijing 2022.
Prof. Bellemans is married to his wife Lieve since 1989, and together they have 3 children, Koen, Inge and Tom.