Johannes J. Hans Jeekel MD, PhD

Dr. Jeekel studied medicine at Leiden University, the oldest university in the Netherlands, graduating in 1966. In 1967, he was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to conduct research at Harvard University and worked as a fellow there for two years. When he returned to the Netherlands, he completed his surgical training, and by the 1980s, he had become the head of the Department of Surgery at University Hospital Rotterdam and a professor of surgery at Erasmus University in Rotterdam. Although well known for his work in hernia surgery, Dr. Jeekel began his research career in a completely different arena. In the 1960s and 1970s, Dr. Jeekel’s thesis work explored whether blood transfusions could enhance the survival of tissue grafts. During his studies, he realized that if blood transfusions do in fact promote the acceptance of foreign tissues such as those from a transplant, the transfusions might also promote cancer growth.