John van der Oost

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
John van der Oost (2013)

John van der Oost (born July 22, 1958 in Zevenhuizen ) is a Dutch microbiologist .

John van der Oost studied molecular biology at the Free University of Amsterdam , where he received his doctorate in 1989. As a post-doctoral student , he spent six months at the University of Helsinki and two and a half years at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg. Then he was a KNAW Fellow at the Free University of Amsterdam. In 1995 he became head of the group for bacterial genetics at the Laboratory for Microbiology at Wageningen University .

He is one of the pioneers of the CRISPR revolution in molecular biology with applications in biotechnology and gene therapy . This happened as part of his investigation of the immune defense of bacteria against viruses via the CRISPR mechanism. In 2008 he published an influential article about it with others. They were the first to show that the CRISPR-Cas mechanism of virus defense (detection of foreign DNA) is mediated via RNA. They transferred such a defense system from one bacterium to another and showed that specially designed CRISPR enables any DNA sequence to be detected.

At the beginning of his career he studied the metabolism of archaebacteria , where he discovered many new enzymes and gained knowledge about their regulation.

He is a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences (2017) and EMBO (2013). In 2018 he received the most important Dutch science award , the Spinoza Prize .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ SJ Brouns, J. van der Oost a. a .: Small CRISPR RNAs guide antiviral defense in prokaryotes, Science , Volume 321, 2008, pp. 960-964, PMID 18703739
personal data
SURNAME Oost, John van der
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch microbiologist
DATE OF BIRTH July 22, 1958
PLACE OF BIRTH Zevenhuizen