Nick Hoogenraad, AO is an Australian biochemist. He is currently

Emeritus ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

Professor of Biochemistry at La Trobe University. Hoogenraad's work led to the discovery of the

mitochondrial unfolded protein response The mitochondrial unfolded protein response (UPRmt) is a cellular stress response related to the mitochondria. The UPRmt results from Protein folding, unfolded or misfolded proteins in mitochondria beyond the capacity of Chaperone (protein), chapero ...

. Hoogenraad was born in The Hague to Ton and Lique Hoogenraad, and was one of six children. Hoogenraad completed a bachelor of agricultural science, by the end of which time he had "fallen in love with biochemistry", partly due to reading ''The Origin of Life'' by Soviet biochemist Alexander Oparin. He completed his Ph.D. under agricultural biochemist

Frank Hird Robert Francis Hird (1873 – 2 November 1937) was a journalist, author and lover of politician, sculptor and writer Lord Ronald Gower (1845–1916). Early life Robert Francis Hird was born in 1873 in Hull, England, the son of James Hird. At ...

, using biochemical and

electron microscopy An electron microscope is a microscope that uses a beam of accelerated electrons as a source of illumination. As the wavelength of an electron can be up to 100,000 times shorter than that of visible light photons, electron microscopes have a hi ...

techniques to compile the first atlas of the bacteria in the rumen of sheep. Working with the rumen bacteria was unpleasant and another member of Hird's lab, Max Marginson, started calling Hoogenraad "rumencrud" in allusion to this. This behaviour stopped after Hoogenraad placed some foul-smelling

butyric acid Butyric acid (; from grc, βούτῡρον, meaning "butter"), also known under the systematic name butanoic acid, is a straight-chain alkyl carboxylic acid with the chemical formula CH3CH2CH2CO2H. It is an oily, colorless liquid with an unple ...

on Marginson's jacket. He began work as a postdoctoral researcher in the Pediatric department at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

in 1969, becoming assistant professor in Human Biology in 1971, and returning for a year as visiting professor in 1979. He returned to Australia in 1974 after being hired by Bruce Stone to join the new department of Biochemistry at La Trobe University. He became Head of Biochemistry when Stone retired in 1993. In 1998 he was appointed Head of the School of Molecular Sciences which was restructured multiple times, and by his retirement in 2014 contained three departments: Biochemistry and Genetics, Chemistry and Physics, and Pharmacy and Applied Science. Hoogenraad also served as the founding director of the La Trobe Institute for Molecular Science from 2009 to 2014. An auditorium in the LIMS1 building is named after him. His most recent research interest is cachexia. In 2015 his team published research showing how mice that do not have the receptor for a protein called Fn14 do not develop cachexia in cancer. Mice treated with anti-Fn14 antibodies also do not develop cachexia.

References

La Trobe University Australian biochemists Australian academics Dutch emigrants to Australia Officers of the Order of Australia Year of birth missing (living people) Living people University of Melbourne alumni {{Biochemist-stub