Hans Victor Westerhoff (born 14 January 1953 in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

)Prof. dr. H.V. Westerhoff, 1953-
at the

University of Amsterdam The University of Amsterdam (abbreviated as UvA, nl, Universiteit van Amsterdam) is a public research university located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The UvA is one of two large, publicly funded research universities in the city, the other bein ...

''Album Academicum'' website is a Dutch biologist and biochemist who is professor of synthetic

systems biology Systems biology is the computational modeling, computational and mathematical analysis and modeling of complex biological systems. It is a biology-based interdisciplinary field of study that focuses on complex interactions within biological syst ...

at the

and

AstraZeneca AstraZeneca plc () is a British-Swedish multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company with its headquarters at the Cambridge Biomedical Campus in Cambridge, England. It has a portfolio of products for major diseases in areas includ ...

professor of systems biology at the

University of Manchester The University of Manchester is a public university, public research university in Manchester, England. The main campus is south of Manchester city centre, Manchester City Centre on Wilmslow Road, Oxford Road. The university owns and operates majo ...

. Currently he is a Chair of AstraZeneca and a director of the Manchester Centre for Integrative Systems Biology.

Career

Westerhoff was educated at the

where he was awarded a

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper ''Piled Higher and Deeper'' (also known as ''PhD Comics''), is a newsp ...

in 1983 for investigations of

non-equilibrium thermodynamics Non-equilibrium thermodynamics is a branch of thermodynamics that deals with physical systems that are not in thermodynamic equilibrium but can be described in terms of macroscopic quantities (non-equilibrium state variables) that represent an ex ...

and the control of

biological thermodynamics Biological thermodynamics is the quantitative study of the energy transductions that occur in or between living organisms, structures, and cells and of the nature and function of the chemical processes underlying these transductions. Biological th ...

supervised by Karel van Dam. In 1996 he succeeded Ad Stouthamer as professor of microbiology at the

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam The Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (abbreviated as ''VU Amsterdam'' or simply ''VU'' when in context) is a public research university in Amsterdam, Netherlands, being founded in 1880. The VU Amsterdam is one of two large, publicly funded research ...

Research

At the beginning of his career Westerhoff worked in the area of

in relation to biological energy transduction. His work on this topic led to a book written with Karel Van Dam. After being a coauthor of one of the first experimental papers to stimulate interest in

metabolic control analysis Metabolic control analysis (MCA) is a mathematical framework for describing metabolic, signaling, and genetic pathways. MCA quantifies how variables,elastsuch as fluxes and species concentrations, depend on network parameters. In particular, it i ...

and participating in the group that proposed a harmonized terminology, Westerhoff moved progressively towards working on multi-enzyme systems as his major activity, starting with an analysis of the effect of enzyme activity on metabolite concentrations. He published many papers in this area, of which one may note an analysis of the control of regulatory cascades, analysqis of glycolytic oscilations in yeast, and showing that the ''in vivo'' behaviour of ''Trypanosoma brucei'' agreed with the kinetic properties of the glycolytic enzymes. Westerhoff and colleagues discovered

magainin The magainins are a class of antimicrobial peptides found in the African clawed frog (''Xenopus laevis''). The peptides are cationic, generally lack a stable conformation in water but form amphipathic α-helix in membranes; their mechanism agains ...

in the

African clawed frog The African clawed frog (''Xenopus laevis'', also known as the xenopus, African clawed toad, African claw-toed frog or the ''platanna'') is a species of African aquatic frog of the family Pipidae. Its name is derived from the three short claws ...

which helps it fight against

bacteria Bacteria (; singular: bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one biological cell. They constitute a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria were am ...

. In December 1996 he and his group discovered a

nitric-oxide reductase Nitric oxide reductase, an enzyme, catalyzes the reduction of nitric oxide (NO) to nitrous oxide (N2O). The enzyme participates in nitrogen metabolism and in the microbial defense against nitric oxide toxicity. The catalyzed reaction may be depend ...

of ''

Paracoccus denitrificans ''Paracoccus denitrificans'', is a coccoid Coccoid means shaped like or resembling a coccus, that is, spherical.The noun coccoid or coccoids may refer to: * a level of organization, characterized by unicellular, non-flagellated, non-amoeboid ...

''. In conjunction with many other workers Westerhoff used a community approach to construct a consensus yeast metabolic network and subsequently applied the same approach to human metabolism.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Westerhoff, Hans V. 1953 births Living people Dutch biologists Dutch biochemists Systems biologists University of Amsterdam alumni Academic staff of the University of Amsterdam Academic staff of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Manchester University (Indiana) faculty Scientists from Amsterdam