Els Verhoeyen is an INSERM research director in France and is affiliated currently to the international center for research in infectiology (CIRI, ENS de Lyon, France) and also to the center C3M focused on cancer Research (C3M, Nice University, France). She has been working for over 20 years on the development of new lentiviral vector pseudotypes to obtain more efficient gene modification of human hematopoietic cells in vitro and in vivo for gene therapy purposes. She is also since 2016 the president of the French society for cell and gene therapy which is in strong connection with the European societies.