Daniel Desmecht graduated from the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of Liège in the late 80s. Although he was planning on a career in veterinary practice, he was attracted by fundamental scientific research in the field of cardiovascular and respiratory physiology and quickly started a doctoral thesis under the supervision of Professor Pierre Lekeux. These years of thesis having revealed a real passion for research and the academic way of life, and he switched from function to structure by applying for an academic position in the department of Pathology. After a post-doc at Iowa State University, he created his own laboratory, focusing on the genomics of innate resistance to infectious diseases.