Prof. Peter M. Lansdorp has been appointed to the Endowed Chair at the University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG). He is one of the nine top academics to be financed by the Board of the University via the Endowed Chair Programme. Lansdorp will be the Scientific Director of the new European Research Institute on the Biology of Ageing (Eriba) of the University of Groningen and the UMCG.
Lansdorp’s appointment was announced on Tuesday 28 September at the groundbreaking ceremony for the Eriba Institute’s laboratory building. The research institute will bring together fundamental scientific research conducted into ageing and related diseases. Top scientists from around the world will unravel the mechanisms underlying diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s but will also study the fundamental causes of, for instance, tumours and diabetes mellitus.
Lansdorp is currently employed by the University of British Columbia in Vancouver (Canada). He studied medicine at Erasmus University (1976) and gained his PhD at the University of Amsterdam (1985). His research focuses on the role of genetic instability in ageing and in the development of cancer. His main research interest is telomeres – pieces of DNA that protect the ends of chromosomes.
Lansdorp sees fruitful opportunities for developing a top institute in Groningen. ‘It’s not just the University and UMCG that have embraced the initiative, but also politicians’, he recently stated in a special Healthy Ageing supplement in the Dagblad van het Noorden daily. ‘Such support across the board for fundamental research is almost unthinkable anywhere else in the world.’ Lansdorp has firm hopes of attracting international top scientists to Groningen. ‘A new building, new equipment, a dedicated organization – this should all make Eriba look good to scientists from the Netherlands and from abroad.’
Eriba laboratory
The University of Groningen is building a new scientific institute for research into ageing on the grounds of the University Medical Center Groningen. The Eriba building has been designed to foster meetings between scientists from different disciplines, thus stimulating cross-disciplinary thought and increasing chances of breakthroughs. Research will be conducted at cellular level, using ultramodern research facilities and applying techniques for genome and protein research, microscopy, bioinformatics and cell isolation.
Building and outfitting the laboratory and hiring and equipping researchers will take EUR 49 million. The institute design and the total investment make Eriba unique – not just to Groningen but to the Netherlands as well. Eriba will join the global field of top research institutes that focus on ageing.
Robert-Jan Smits, the Director-General of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Research, conducted the groundbreaking ceremony, marking Eriba’s ambition to play an important role in European research programmes. Earlier this year, European Commissioner for Research and Innovation Máire Geoghegan-Quinn reiterated that Healthy Ageing will be an important element in the EU 2020 strategy, with prevention a key theme of research programmes to come. The 150 researchers who will be working at Eriba will make their own contribution to this field.
Endowed Chairs programme
In order to expand its reputation as an excellent research institution, in 2009 the University of Groningen started an ambitious investment programme, the University of Groningen Endowed Chairs programme. This project is founded on an investment of approximately EUR 20 million, designed to attract internationally prominent academics to the University of Groningen. The fields these academics work in are divided over the nine faculties. Thus far, the following professors have been appointed to Endowed Chairs: Prof. Kocku von Stuckrad (Theology and Religious Studies), Prof. Philip McCann (Spatial Sciences), Prof. Igor Douven and Prof. Pauline Kleingeld (Philosophy), Prof. Johan Bos (Arts) and Dr Aurelia Colombi Ciacchi (Law).
