production of animal proteins by cell systems - New Harvest

About the authors
Henk P Haagsman (1954) graduated from Utrecht University in 1978 with a degree in
chemistry. He defended his thesis in January 1983. From 1978 onwards he teaches at
the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine. In 1982 he started to work on the pulmonary
surfactant system and studied mechanisms that cause alterations in the surfactant
system in toxic and diseased states. As an experimental system he used isolated type II
pneumocytes. This work was supported by a grant from the Netherlands Asthma
Foundation. In 1985 he was the recipient of the Constantijn en Christiaan Huygens
Award bestowed by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). This
award, intended to save excellent scientists for the academia and given to only a few
biochemists, enabled the recipients to do research and to teach for five years at
universities of their choice. From 1986 to 1988 he worked as a visiting scientist at the
Cardiovascular Research Institute, Faculty of Medicine, University of California at San
Francisco, USA. Here he started his work on the structure and function of pulmonary
surfactant proteins in the laboratory of Professor J.A. Clements. After his return he
continued working on these proteins. His publications on this subject include more than
90 scientific papers. In 1998 he was appointed Professor of Meat Science at the Faculty
of Veterinary Medicine of Utrecht University. From 1998 until 2003 he also had an
appointment at the TNO Nutrition and Food Research Institute. From 2001-2005 he was
a member of the University Council. Gradually the emphasis on applied meat research
and regulation of muscle homeostasis shifted towards innate host defence and stem cell
biology. His credo is: “Healthy animals, Healthy food, Healthy people”.
Klaas J Hellingwerf (1950) graduated in 1975 from the University of Groningen with a
degree in chemistry. He obtained his PhD degree in 1978 at the University of Amsterdam
and subsequently became an assistant professor at the Department of Microbiology of
the University of Groningen. In 1982 he was a visiting scientist at the Department of
Physics and Biology of the University of California at San Diego, and in 1987 he was a
visiting scientist at the Institute for Zoology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing,
China. From 1988 he is professor in general Microbiology at the University of
Amsterdam. His research interests are signal transduction mechanisms and bioenergetics
of pro- and eukaryotic microorganisms.
Bernard AJ Roelen (1968) studied Biology at Utrecht University where he graduated in
1992. He then worked as a PhD student at the Hubrecht Laboratory in Utrecht under the
supervision of dr. Christine Mummery, and obtained his PhD degree in 1997.
Subsequently he worked as a junior scientist at the same Hubrecht Laboratory until
2001. From 2002-2002 he worked as a post-doctoral researcher at Harvard University in
Boston and after that at the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam. In 2003 he was
appointed assistant professor at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of Utrecht University.
His research subjects are development of germ cells and stem cells.
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