Meindert H. Lamers appointed professor

Structural biology is a field that involves visualizing the three-dimensional structure of proteins to better understand how proteins perform their function, how mutations change the structure and thus the function of the protein, and how new drugs can be developed that stop pathogenic proteins.

Antibiotic resistance

His research focuses on two key issues: advancing structural biology research in the Netherlands and developing new antibiotics. Lamers: “The increasing level of antibiotic resistance poses a huge threat to healthcare. Already you can see that antibiotic-resistant bacteria are prevalent in hospitals in a number of countries worldwide, which means that standard surgeries and treatments can be a death sentence. Developing new antibiotics will keep us one step ahead of the bacteria before we take a step back in time to the early 20th century when antibiotics were not yet developed.”

Important information about how diseases arise

In addition to his contributions to research that improves patient care, Lamers wants to excite students about the ingenious way life works at the molecular and cellular level. “And how by studying this we gain important information about how diseases arise, and how we can better treat or even fix them.”

Resume

Meindert Lamers studied Medical Biology at the University of Amsterdam. He conducted his doctoral research at the Dutch Cancer Institute under the direction of Titia Sixma. There he worked on a DNA-mismatch-repair mechanism. Lamers then did a postdoc at University of California, Berkeley under John Kuriyan's direction, where he conducted research on the DNA copier: the DNA polymerase. In 2009, he set up his own research group within the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK. In 2017, he moved to LUMC to continue his research there.