Maarten van Lohuizen - Biography#

Maarten van Lohuizen studied Biology and received his Ph.D in 1992 from the University of Amsterdam. After a 2 year postdoctoral period (UCSF, Dr. I. Herskowitz) he has been a group leader at The Netherlands Cancer Institute, Amsterdam (from 1995).

His group has made important contributions on the functional analysis of epigenetic gene silencing mechanisms by Polycomb-group protein complexes, which play crucial roles in controlling development, differentiation, cell proliferation and stem cell identity and when deregulated prominently contribute to cancer formation. Current focus is on using human cancer organoids and state-of-the-art mouse cancer models to test novel epigenetic combination therapies and to screen for cancer-relevant Polycomb targets using in vivo shRNAi screening. His group has in collaboration with Dr. A. Berns (NKI) and Dr. A. Bradley (Sanger Center, UK) also developed genome wide high-throughput genetic screens in cell-based assays and in cancer-prone mice to identify new genes that contribute to cancer and classify them in functional groups/signaling pathways. In addition, his group has recently developed a novel genome-wide transposon-based reporter system to systematically screen for effects of local chromatin effects on gene regulation.

Currently he is head of the Division of Molecular Genetics, The Netherlands Cancer Institute, Amsterdam and is Professor at the Amsterdam University Medical School (from 2007). Maarten van Lohuizen is a member of the Centre for Biomedical Genetics and of the European Molecular Biology Organization.