Nationality Dutch Residence Groningen, Netherlands | Alma mater Utrecht University | |
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Born 12 May 1956 (age 60)
Rotterdam ( 1956-05-12 ) Institutions University of Groningen, 1984-present
Royal Dutch Shell, 1979-1984 Thesis Probing the mechanism of pancreatic phospholipase A2 by protein engineering (1990) Doctoral advisor Prof. Dr. G.H. de Haas
Prof. Dr. H.M. Verheij Fields Molecular genetics, Microbiology, Biotechnology | ||
Oscar Paul Kuipers (Rotterdam, May 12, 1956) is a Dutch professor of molecular genetics at the University of Groningen (UG). His areas of expertise include Microbiology, Biochemistry & Molecular and cell biology and Biotechnology.
Contents
Study and career
Honours and awards
Administrative and management functions
Research
The research of Kuipers and his research group is focused on curiosity driven research with a keen eye on biotechnological applicationsBasic research Kuipers files19 patents and has sofar supervised 21 postdoctoral researchers en 35 PhD students Doctors of Philosophy in their doctorate research. At the moment (October 2015) he supervises 18 PhD studentsPhD’s and 7 Postdoctoral researchers. He has been invited more than 180 times to national or international conferences, seminars and congresses to give a lecture.
An important topic of research is the study of the genetics and fysiology of bacteria. Among others the cellular differentiation of bacteria is investigated. Bacteria growing in a culture can develop different characteristics, while their genome remains unchanged. Kuipers: ‘Our research has many applications, for example the improvement of protein production in industrial fermentation'. An other important subject is the production and modification of peptides peptides. These modified peptides (lantibiotics), are made by bacteria, and can serve as antibiotic. Modified peptides are chemically more stable and retain their function longer than unmodified peptides. This is beneficial for medical applications as a novel class of antibiotics. Further areas of focus are the molecular biology of: competence, sporulation and bistability in Bacteria subtilis, the reconstruction of gene networks, antimicrobial peptides, especially antibiotics, pathogenesis mechanisms, cell wall anchoring, controlled gene expressionsystems, the subcellular localization of protein, stress response, quorum sensing, regulation of the C- and N-metabolism , natural gene transfer methodologies, plant-biocontrol by Bacilli and Biotechnology applications.
Research for industry
Research by Bachelor and Master students
From 2008 Kuipers is supervisor, coach and coordinator of the iGEM student team Groningen. iGEM is a worldwide competition in the field of synthetic biology between teams of students from all over the world. The team from Groningen won in the annual in Boston (United States) organized international competition several gold medals (2008 to 2016). In 2012, when the team from Groningen became world champion, the research concerned a study of an alternative method to determine whether food is spoiled: the Food warden . This method makes use of genetic engineered bacteria responsive to the volatiles of the decomposing meat. A pigment makes the decomposition visible.
Publications
Prof. dr. O.P. Kuipers published 365 articles in scientific papers, 2 books and 18 chapters in books. 34 Publicaties appeared in 2015. Kuipers articles have been cited over 22 148 times and he has a H-index of 80 and an i10 index of 278. This means that 80 of his articles have been cited at least 80 times and that 278 articles have been cited more than 10 times.