Day of birth: November 26, 1973

University: Biology, Leiden (Cum Laude)

PhD thesis: Prof Dr Westerhoff lab (Cum Laude)

About me

I finished laboratory technician training in Biotechnology (BSc) before I went to university to study Biology (MSc).  During my master courses I took theoretical courses in the physics and mathematics faculty besides my biology courses.  During one of my research projects, which dealt with non-equilibrium thermodynamics of microbial growth, Prof Dr H Westerhoff was my supervisor.  Some months later I started as a PhD student in his group. Dr Fred Boogerd acted as a co-supervisor.  During my PhD studies I developed kinetic models, response and control theory to analyze molecular regulatory networks.  Kinetic models were developed for mammalian MAPK signaling (in collaboration with another PhD student Jorrit Hornberg) and ammonium assimilation by Escherichia coli.  Control and response theory was developed as a collaboration with Nils Bluethgen (Berlin, Germany) and Prof Dr B.N. Kholodenko (Philadelphia, USA).  Part of my PhD research also dealt with philosophy of biology.  We analyzed the nature of systems biology in collaboration with two philosophers Prof Dr Achim Stephan (Ossnabruck, Germany) and Prof Dr Robert Richardson (Cincinnatti, USA).  My current work is on systems biology of molecular regulatory networks.  We study eukaryotic gene expression, bursty transcription, epigenetic regulation, nuclear receptor signaling, nucleocytoplasmic shuttling of signaling proteins, stochiometric analysis for microbial ecosystems, GPCR signaling, and metabolic network modeling.  We develop explicit models and theory, all in close collaboration with experimentalists.