Dr P.J. Lucassen (1965) has been appointed Professor of Structural and Functional Neuroanatomy at the University of Amsterdam’s (UvA) Faculty of Science.

Paul Lucassen’s work focuses on stem cells in the brain, and in particular on aspects such as the role new neurons play in the adult brain. He examines how these cells function and are affected by environmental factors such as stress, sports and illnesses like depression and dementia. A key question in his research concerns the long-term effects that stress at an early age can have on the makeup and functioning of the brain and which molecular mechanisms drive those effects.

After earning his PhD (cum laude) from the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience and a postdoctoral research appointment in Leiden, Lucassen has been working at the UvA’s Center for Neuroscience of the Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences since 1997. He began as a university lecturer, before becoming a senior university lecturer in 2004 and an interim group head in 2009. He also chairs the academic advisory council of the International Foundation for Alzheimer Research (Internationale Stichting Alzheimer Onderzoek, ISAO). Lucassen has received various research grants from organisations such as the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), the European Union, the International Parkinson Foundation, ISAO, the Netherlands Brain Foundation (HersenStichting Nederland) and the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). He has authored 20 book chapters and nearly one hundred publications in leading journals including Brain, Progress in Neurobiology and Journal of Neuroscience.