Mr A.J. Verhoeven (1955) has been appointed strategic professor in Medical Biochemistry - specialising in cell metabolism - at the University of Amsterdam's Faculty of Medicine (AMC-UvA).

After receiving his PhD at the UvA in 1986 (on a thesis entitled Hormonal Effects on mitochondrial metabolism in rat liver) Arthur Verhoeven investigated leukocytes (white blood cells) focusing on activation of the oxygen metabolism in these cells, a mechanism that plays a key role in our body's immune system. He conducted this research as a fellow of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, working in the Blood Cell Chemistry department of the Central Laboratory of the Blood Transfusion Service (CLB). He was appointed head of CLB'sTransfusion Technology Department in 1996, where he led research on the main blood cell products used in transfusions, namely red blood cells (needed to transport oxygen) and blood platelets (which play a key role in the coagulation process).

On 1 July Verhoeven returned to the Medical Biochemistry group of the AMC/UvA where he was originally trained as a researcher. In his new tenure he will seek to identify the key factors of Metabolic Syndrome, a combination of obesity-related disorders, and the resistance to insulin that is often linked to this condition. The study will involve blood cells as metabolic indicators, applying methods from the realm of systems biology to analyse the growing amount of data on this subject.

Verhoeven has (co)-authored over 140 scientific publications in the area of leukocyte activation, red blood cell metabolism and the biology of blood platelets, which have appeared in journals such as Blood, Journal of Biological Chemistry and the Journal of Immunology. He served as member of the board for the European Society for Clinical Investigation (ESCI) from 1992 to 1996 and as chairman of the Dutch Blood Transfusion Society (NVB) from 2003 to 2005.