Clemens van Blitterswijk

Clemens van Blitterswijk
Clemens van Blitterswijk
Born The Hague, Netherlands
Nationality Netherlands
Alma mater University of Leiden
Awards

Jean Leray award; The Marie Parijs award; The Klein award;

George Winter award; Huibregtsen Prize; Career Achievement Award;
Scientific career
Fields Biomedical Engineering, Biomaterials, Tissue Engineering
Institutions University of Maastricht

Clemens A. van Blitterswijk (1957, The Hague) is a Dutch scientist who is internationally known for his pioneering work in the field of tissue engineering, which aims to replace or regenerate diseased or damaged tissues through a combination of biology and engineering. In the past decades, he has led teams that have contributed to several scientific breakthroughs in the field, one of which is using synthetic biomaterials to heal bone injuries by triggering the body’s cells to regenerate. Together with Hemant Unadkat and Jan de Boer, he also led the application of high-throughput techniques to deal with the complexity of designing biomaterials, termed “materiomics.” Van Blitterswijk has contributed more than 430 peer-reviewed published papers (>18,000 citations, h-index 88; Web of Science).[1]

Career

Clemens van Blitterswijk graduated as cell biologist at Leiden University in 1982. He defended his PhD thesis in 1985 at the same university on artificial ceramic middle ear implants, for which he was awarded the Jean Leray young scientist award of the European Society for Biomaterials for outstanding research contribution.

In his research through the 1990s and 2000s, van Blitterswijk worked on novel biomaterials to heal bone injuries. He proved in a seminal paper with Joost de Bruijn and Huipin Yuan that some synthetic materials can trigger stem cells to generate entirely new bone tissue, a phenomenon called “osteoinductivity.”[2] In 1997, he became professor at University of Twente, where he founded and directed the MIRA institute. There, with Hemant Unadkat and Jan de Boer, he led efforts to shift tissue engineering towards more systematic and high-throughput approaches, which resulted in the TopoChip[3][4] His leadership in and commitment to academic, scientific research continues, exemplified by the award of prestigious funding, including the ERC Advanced grant in 2015 and the NWO Gravitation grant in 2017[5].

Since 2014, van Blitterswijk is the institute director, department chair and professor at the MERLN Institute for Technology-Inspired Regenerative Medicine at Maastricht University (UM). He is one of only four distinguished professors at UM.[6] Additionally, he founded and is leading an international consortium (Regenerative Medicine Crossing Borders; RegMed XB) that aims to bring multiple cures for chronic diseases to market in the next ten years. He is recognized as a fellow of the International Union of Societies for Biomaterials Science and Engineering. Van Blitterswijk has been a member of the Netherlands Academy of Technology and Innovation (AcTI) since 2003, the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) since 2012, and the Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities (KHMW) since 2016. He currently holds editorial roles at Regenerative Biomaterials and the Journal of Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine.

Valorization

Since the 1990s, van Blitterswijk has translated multiple technologies and scientific findings to commercial products that benefit patients worldwide. To date, over 100 patents have been filed under his name, 15 clinical evaluations have been initiated and seven EC and/or FDA approvals awarded.

To date, van Blitterswijk has founded 10 companies and served as CEO (from 1996–2002) of IsoTis, a publicly traded life sciences company. IsoTis subsequently suffered heavy financial losses in 2007 and was on the verge of bankruptcy before merging with Integra LifeSciences.[7] [8]

He has been awarded for his valorization activities, being named the most entrepreneurial scientist in the Netherlands in 2012[9] and receiving the prestigious Huibregtsen award for ground-breaking science with societal impact in 2015. He is a founding partner of the Health Economics Funds (HEF) of the European health care investment group Life Sciences Partners (LSP), one of the largest healthcare investment firms in Europe. The two HEF funds have raised close to €400 million for technologies that will improve the quality of health care while lowering the cost of it, focused specifically on medical devices, diagnostics, and digital health. HEF2, at €280 million, is currently the largest fund in Europe dedicated to medical technology.

Teaching

Over his 30-year career, van Blitterswijk has supervised >70 PhD candidates through to their dissertation, and has edited four textbooks, including the first dedicated to tissue engineering.

Awards

Van Blitterswijk has won most of the prestigious awards in his field, including:

Ten Major Publications

  • Levenberg S, Rouwkema J, Macdonald M, Garfein ES, Kohane DS, Darland DC, Marini R, van Blitterswijk CA, Mulligan RC, D'Amore PA, Langer R (July 2005). "Engineering vascularized skeletal muscle tissue". Nature Biotechnology. 23 (7): 879–84. doi:10.1038/nbt1109. PMID 15965465.
  • Moroni L, de Wijn JR, van Blitterswijk CA (March 2006). "3D fiber-deposited scaffolds for tissue engineering: influence of pores geometry and architecture on dynamic mechanical properties". Biomaterials. 27 (7): 974–85. doi:10.1016/j.biomaterials.2005.07.023. PMID 16055183.
  • Rouwkema J, de Boer J, Van Blitterswijk CA (September 2006). "Endothelial cells assemble into a 3-dimensional prevascular network in a bone tissue engineering construct". Tissue Engineering. 12 (9): 2685–93. doi:10.1089/ten.2006.12.2685. PMID 16995802.
  • Meijer GJ, de Bruijn JD, Koole R, van Blitterswijk CA (February 2007). "Cell-based bone tissue engineering". PLoS Medicine. 4 (2): e9. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0040009. PMID 17311467. </ref>
  • Jukes JM, Both SK, Leusink A, Sterk LM, van Blitterswijk CA, de Boer J (May 2008). "Endochondral bone tissue engineering using embryonic stem cells". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 105 (19): 6840–5. doi:10.1073/pnas.0711662105. PMC 2374550. PMID 18467492.
  • Siddappa R, Martens A, Doorn J, Leusink A, Olivo C, Licht R, van Rijn L, Gaspar C, Fodde R, Janssen F, van Blitterswijk C, de Boer J (May 2008). "cAMP/PKA pathway activation in human mesenchymal stem cells in vitro results in robust bone formation in vivo". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 105 (20): 7281–6. doi:10.1073/pnas.0711190105. PMC 2387183. PMID 18490653.
  • Yuan H, Fernandes H, Habibovic P, de Boer J, Barradas AM, de Ruiter A, Walsh WR, van Blitterswijk CA, de Bruijn JD (August 2010). "Osteoinductive ceramics as a synthetic alternative to autologous bone grafting". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 107 (31): 13614–9. doi:10.1073/pnas.1003600107. PMC 2922269. PMID 20643969.
  • Unadkat HV, Hulsman M, Cornelissen K, Papenburg BJ, Truckenmüller RK, Carpenter AE, Wessling M, Post GF, Uetz M, Reinders MJ, Stamatialis D, van Blitterswijk CA, de Boer J (October 2011). "An algorithm-based topographical biomaterials library to instruct cell fate". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 108 (40): 16565–70. doi:10.1073/pnas.1109861108. PMC 3189082. PMID 21949368.
  • Rivron NC, Vrij EJ, Rouwkema J, Le Gac S, van den Berg A, Truckenmüller RK, van Blitterswijk CA (May 2012). "Tissue deformation spatially modulates VEGF signaling and angiogenesis". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 109 (18): 6886–91. doi:10.1073/pnas.1201626109. PMC 3344996. PMID 22511716.
  • Danoux C, Sun L, Koçer G, Birgani ZT, Barata D, Barralet J, van Blitterswijk C, Truckenmüller R, Habibovic P (March 2016). "Development of Highly Functional Biomaterials by Decoupling and Recombining Material Properties". Advanced Materials. 28 (9): 1803–8. doi:10.1002/adma.201504589. PMID 26689847.

References

  1. ↑ "Web of Science". Retrieved February 1, 2018.
  2. ↑ Yuan H, Fernandes H, Habibovic P, de Boer J, Barradas AM, de Ruiter A, Walsh WR, van Blitterswijk CA, de Bruijn JD (August 2010). "Osteoinductive ceramics as a synthetic alternative to autologous bone grafting". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 107 (31): 13614–9. doi:10.1073/pnas.1003600107. PMC 2922269. PMID 20643969.
  3. ↑ Unadkat HV, Hulsman M, Cornelissen K, Papenburg BJ, Truckenmüller RK, Carpenter AE, Wessling M, Post GF, Uetz M, Reinders MJ, Stamatialis D, van Blitterswijk CA, de Boer J (October 2011). "An algorithm-based topographical biomaterials library to instruct cell fate". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 108 (40): 16565–70. doi:10.1073/pnas.1109861108. PMID 21949368.
  4. ↑ Baker M (November 2011). "Trying out topographies". Nature Methods. 8 (11): 900. doi:10.1038/nmeth.1760. PMID 22167818.
  5. ↑ Karolien. "More than 100 million euros for Dutch top science". www.nwo.nl. Retrieved 2018-02-01.
  6. ↑ "Distinguished university professors - Research - Maastricht University". www.maastrichtuniversity.nl. Retrieved 2018-02-01.
  7. ↑ "IsoTis - Integra Merger". Retrieved September 30, 2018.
  8. ↑ "UNITED STATES SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION Washington, D.C. 20549 SCHEDULE 14A Proxy Statement Pursuant to Section 14(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934". Retrieved September 30, 2018.
  9. ↑ "News_van Blitterswijk most entrepreneurial scientist in 2012". Retrieved February 1, 2018.
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