Sander Van Deventer MD, PhD

Sander van Deventer a certified internist and gastroenterologist received his medical degree and doctorate (of philosophy) from the University of Amsterdam, after defending a thesis on the biological activities of bacterial lipopolysaccharides in humans. Following board certification in internal medicine and gastroenterology he worked as a scientist in the Laboratory for Medical Biochemistry, Rockefeller University, New York.
He was the first to administer an anti-­‐TNF monoclonal antibody (later registered as Remicade) to patients with Crohn’s disease, the first to infuse apolipoprotein A1 in humans and had a critical role in the development of other therapeutic interventions, targeting cytokines, cytokine receptors, T-­‐cells and signal transduction pathways, using small molecules, antibodies, peptides, proteins and antisense DNA technologies. He supervised the development of Glybera, the first gene therapy product to be approved in Europe, and several other gene therapy products. In 1995, he became director of the laboratory for Experimental Internal Medicine at the Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam, and continued to work on therapeutic signal transduction inhibition, gene therapies, and (genetically engineered) probiotics. From 2001 until 2004, he chaired the Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at the Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam