Prof. Etienne Pays obtained his MSc in Biology in 1970 and his Ph.D. in Zoology in 1974, both at the Free University of Brussels. He then became a researcher in the Laboratory of Molecular Cytology and Embryology under the direction of Prof. J. Brachet then M. Steinert, before being appointed as Professor and Director of the Laboratory of Molecular Parasitology in 1992. In 1998, he became a Full Professor at the University of Brussels. His contributions to the understanding of the genetic mechanisms for antigenic variation of African trypanosomes have been recognized by the 1990 Mohamed El Fasi Prize (Haut Conseil de l’AUPELF/UREF, Paris), the 1992 Merck, Sharp & Dohme Prize (FNRS, Brussels) and the 1996 Francqui Prize. In 2000, he was awarded the Quinquennial Prize for Fundamental Biomedical Sciences (FNRS), and in 2014 he received the International Sanofi-Pasteur Institute Senior Award.