Sander Wuyts
Immunewatch
When you are born, your immune system is basically a blank page. However, it is quickly trained by many different experiences like contact with bacteria, viruses and vaccines. Because of this your immune system contains a lot of valuable medical information. At ImmuneWatch, they use artificial intelligence to extract this information so that it can be used to design better vaccines, cancer therapies and biological drugs.
What gives you satisfaction as an entrepreneur?
I like hard puzzles, where you have to learn new stuff to solve it. Entrepreneurship feels just like that, but in “CONTINUOUS ON” mode. Every month there’s a new challenge that we have to learn how to best tackle it. Plus I get to do this with a team of amazing people and I meet new interesting people all the time. How can I not get satisfaction out of this?
What from your past has had a great impact on you and made you the person you are today?
My spouse and I moved to Germany (Heidelberg) for two and a half years. Living abroad is definitely one of the experiences that makes you see the world differently, even though it was just Germany. We learned to say “hallo!” to everyone on nature hikes instead of looking at our feet, we learned to slow down our lives and learned to appreciate daily small things much better. Also, pretzels. Why is no one selling pretzels in Antwerp???
What is the best book you have ever read?
Cliché, it’s hard choosing one. So, this time I will be choosing one I don’t pick often, “Sourdough” by Robin Sloan. I love microbes, food, humour and computers and this book has it all. It is often reviewed as the first book where a sourdough starter is the main character and it’s delicious to read! Please keep in mind that you will definitely start baking once finished.
What in your life are you most grateful for?
The ability to discover something for the first time in your life. These can be physical places, such as a really lovely mountain view or a nice small restaurant, but also more fluffy things like very specialized knowledge shared by an expert or feeling for the first time what it’s like to be a parent. It comforts me that there are still a lot of cool things to be discovered!
Imagine your house catching fire. Apart from loved ones and pets, what else would you want to save?
In my freezer, there’s this small plastic test tube with a couple of droplets of DNA in it (since DNA is not visible to the naked eye, imagine a small test tube that looks like it contains frozen water). In 2015 several scientists from the UK stored computer files on these pieces of DNA including an image of James Joyce and a text file that contains the password for claiming one bitcoin. The first one that could read out the DNA and decode the files, could keep the bitcoin. I was fortunate enough to be the guy that solved this challenging puzzle, almost three years later at the beginning of 2018. It all started with that small tube, that I am definitely taking to share with my grandkids.
What is your most remarkable sensory memory? Like a food memory, music memory?
Every summer, from the age of 6 to 22, I went camping for 10 days with our youth movement (shoutout to de Chiro). The smell of trees and grass in the summer, during hikes immediately brings me back to those days of fun and friendship. I should do that again!