Francois van der Westhuizen is a Professor of Biochemistry and Executive Dean of the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences at North-West University (NWU), Potchefstroom.

He is a HPCSA-registered medical biological scientist. He is a Principal investigator in the Mitochondrial Research Group, which was established in 2002 as a sub-programme of the Biomedical and Molecular Metabolism Research (BioMMet) focus area at NWU. His research broadly falls within mitochondrial medicine, with a primary focus on the aetiology of mitochondrial and other neuromuscular diseases in southern African populations.

This work involves the biochemical and genetic characterisation of these rare diseases, as well as the investigation of cell biological processes and adaptive responses associated with mitochondrial function in these disorders using disease models. The aim of this research is to develop improved diagnostics in the South African context and to identify new treatment strategies.

Through strong national and international collaborations—supported by extended sabbaticals at the Radboud Nijmegen Centre for Mitochondrial Disease in the Netherlands and the Mitochondrial Research Group at Newcastle University in the United Kingdom—he serves as the coordinating South African principal investigator for the SA node of the International Centre for Genomic Medicine in Neuromuscular Diseases (ICGNMD) study. This global initiative, involving the UK, South Africa, Brazil, India, Turkey, and Zambia, aims to better understand the genetics of neuromuscular diseases in these populations over the next decade. Francois holds a B2 NRF rating and served as Vice-President (2019–2022) and President (2022–2024) of the SASBMB council.

He is also a member of the Diagnostics Scientific Committee of the International Rare Diseases Research Consortium (IRDiRC).