Dr. G.J. (Gerbrand) van der Heden van Noort

I studied organic chemistry at Leiden University and after postdoctoral training at the Humboldt University in Berlin and Dutch Cancer Institute (NKI) in Amsterdam I started my lab at the LUMC. Excited by the possibilities that chemistry offers to address biological questions my work focusses on developing molecular tools to study enzymes involved in the ubiquitin-proteasome system. The ‘ubiquitin-code’ is immensely complex and plays roles in almost all cellular processes including immune responses and proper cellular homeostasis. As a consequence the activities of enzymes regulating ubiquitination are often found deviating in infection diseases or cancers. Furthering our understanding of these pathways might open up new possibilities to develop new diagnostic methods or treatment.

As Associate professor in the Department of Cell and Chemical Biology my group explores the interface between ubiquitination and ADPribosylation. Both these post-translational modifications are involved in important cellular processes and gaining an understanding of their involvement in bacterial infection and the onset of cancer might open new possibilities for therapeutic intervention in the involved pathologies. Positioning myself as chemical expert within a network of (structural) biologists has fostered many fruitful (inter)national collaborations on the interface of chemistry and biology. My research is funded by NWO (Rubicon, VENI, VIDI, ENW-M), ZonMW (Off-road) and ERC (Consolidator grant).