Thijn Brummelkamp - Biography#

Thijn Brummelkamp uses genetics in human cells to pinpoint genes that play a role in human disease. His interests are cancer research, infectious disease and drug action. During his Ph.D. studies he developed a system for the expression of shRNA molecules, enabling gene inhibition through “stable RNA interference”. More recently he has developed an approach for haploid genetic screens in human cells using insertional mutagenesis. He has used this approach to identify host factors used by a variety of pathogens, which led to the identification of the lysosomal cholesterol transporter NPC1 as the long-sought intracellular receptor for Ebola virus. He received his M.S. in biology from the Free University, Amsterdam in 1998 and did his graduate research at the Netherlands Cancer Institute in the laboratory of Prof. Rene Bernards. In 2004, he was appointed as a Whitehead Fellow to initiate his independent research program in Cambridge, USA, and in 2011, his laboratory moved to the Netherlands Cancer Institute and he became an Adjunct Principal Investigator at CeMM. Thijn is a co-founder of 3 biotech companies (Haplogen, Haplogen Genomics and Scenic Biotech). For his studies, he received the Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Award (2003), the Annual NVBMB Award (2004, Dutch Association for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology), he was chosen as one of the world’s top 35 Young Innovators by MIT’s Technology Review magazine (2005) and received EMBO’s gold medal in 2013.