Recombinant Protein Expression

Proteins play an important role in infectious diseases. They not only take over central functions in the invasion and replication of pathogens, but also in the defensive reaction of our body or as a drug. For a detailed investigation of proteins, scientists often require them in large amounts and extremely pure state. Read more about how proteins are artificially produced and purified.

Leader

Dr Joop van den Heuvel

“Sometimes a little less is more.”

Portrait of Joop van den Heuvel, outside.

Joop van den Heuvel studied biochemistry at the Free University in Amsterdam and also passed his PhD there from 1985 to 1990 about the effect of mRNA structure on the translational efficiency. After that, he started as a postdoc at the former German Research Centre for Biotechnology (GBF) in Braunschweig, where he worked on the production and purification of proteins. From then on, Joop van den Heuvel has been faithful to this research field. In 1996, he became a project leader in the Department of Biochemical Engineering, and in 2002 he started to work in the Department of Structural Biology. Since 2007, he leads the “Protein Sample Production Facility“ (PSPF) of the HZI, which uses mammalian cells for a large-scale production of recombinant proteins. One year later, he additionally became the leader of the research group “Recombinant Protein Expression”, where he and his colleagues are involved in research as well as in commissioned work.

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