Laurens van Deenen

Laurens Lambertus Marie van Deenen (born August 14, 1928 in Maastricht , † September 4, 1994 in Bilthoven ) was a Dutch biochemist, known for research on biomembranes and biolipids .

Van Deenen is the son of a railway engineer and studied chemistry at the University of Utrecht from 1946 , graduated from the University of Utrecht in 1953 (where he gave lectures for beginners as early as 1950), and received his doctorate cum laude in 1957 ( investigations into the biochemical relationships between the pituitary gland and Thyroid ). In 1961 he became professor of biochemistry at Utrecht University.

He was visiting professor at the universities of Illinois, Tokyo, Guelph and Arizona, among others. At the University of Utrecht he headed an internationally recognized school of biochemists and supervised 56 doctoral students.

In 1976 he received the HP Heineken Prize for Biochemistry and Biophysics . He also received the Heinrich Wieland Prize in 1971 and the Lipid Prize of the American Oil Chemical Society. The van Deenen Medal of the University of Utrecht (Institute for Biomembranes) is named after him, as is the annual van Deenen Lecture , held since 1996 at the International Conference on Bioscience of Lipids (ICBL).

Van Deenen was a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences and, from 1973, head of its science department. In 1986 he became a Knight of the Order of the Dutch Lion and in 1992 Commander of the Order of Orange-Nassau . He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and an honorary doctorate from the University of Antwerp . He received the silver medal of honor from the University of Utrecht.

He was the editor of Biochimica et Biophysica Acta .

Web links

• Photo and link to Dutch biography