Karel Geboes obtained his MD at the Medical School of the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium in 1970. He obtained the board certificate in Internal Medicine in 1975, following which he worked as consultant in gastroenterology in a general hospital. He obtained a board certificate in Pathology in 1982. In 1985 he obtained a PhD with a thesis on morphological aspects of Crohn’s disease. Since 1982 he is a full staff member in the Department of Pathology of the University Hospital of the K.U.Leuven, where he is responsible for gastrointestinal pathology. He was appointed full professor in pathology in 1995. He is president of the national committee for continuing education in pathology since 1997 and member of the national board examination committee for pathology since 1999. He was president of the Flemish Society of Gastroenterology (1996-1998). He has been visiting professor at Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA and at the university of Michigan, Medical school, Ann Arbor, USA. He received several national and international awards including the FAES award for Pathology, the Glaxo Wellcome award in Gastroenterology and the Acta Endoscopica-Takeda award (France). He delivered the Basil Morson lecture for the BSG in 1998 and was lecturer for the Seminari Biomedici Cagliaritani in the same year. He was course organizer for 4 courses on gastrointestinal pathology of the European School of Pathology (in Torino, Moscow, Krakow..). He is author or co-author of more than 400 publications in international journals with peer review and of more than 50 chapters in books in the field of gastroenterology. He is a member of different international societies of pathology (ESP) and gastroenterology including the American (AGA), British (BSG), French and Dutch national societies, of IOIBD (the international organization for the study of Inflammatory Bowel Diseases) and of national societies including the Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium. His main fields of research interest are chronic idiopathic inflammatory bowel diseases, oesophagitis and cancer. He has been chair of the pathology working parties for the ECCO consensus (European Crohn and colitis organization) for the diagnosis and treatment of Crohn’s disease and Ulcerative colitis, and for the IOIBD on the terminology of “indeterminate colitis”. He has been also a member of different working parties for the world congress of Gastroenterology on Inflammatory Bowel diseases, Dysplasia – Intraepithelial neoplasia and Gastrointestinal neuromuscular pathology (GINMP) – Classification and guidelines on histological reporting.