Introduction Roland Brock
Dear participants of this year’s studytrip to Sweden and Norway. With this I would like to introduce myself. First of all, I felt very honored when I was asked last year if I was willing to accompany the studytrip. Certainly, many of you will know me from “Moleculaire Bazis van Ziekten“ or Nanobiotechnology but these are only 2 h classes and you do not have to get along with me for two weeks.
I can say that Spain and Portugal had been my first choice as good food and wine is one of my passions and I would rank these two countries somewhat higher considering their mediterranean cuisine and wine in comparison to smoked fish and thin beer.
From 1989 to 1995 I studied Biochemistry in Tübingen, in the southwest of Germany and in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, followed by a PhD project at the Max-Planck-Institut for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen. I then returned to Tübingen to start my own group and in 2006 was appointed as professor for Biochemistry at the Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre. The key idea behind my research is the use of peptides to study biological processes. During my diploma thesis, I used synthetic peptides to investigate recognition in T cell immunity. During my PhD I learned a lot about different techniques in fluorescent microscopy. Over the past years, a major activity of my group have been cell-penetrating peptides. First, we want to understand how these peptides induce cellular import, second we explore various applications of these molecules. Furthermore, we have been studying protein complexes in T cell signal transduction using both, peptide microarrays and fluorescence microscopy. With a background that ranges from organic chemistry to cell biology I am a great friend of interdisciplinary collaboration projects.
In Nijmegen, I very much like the international atmosphere in research and education. Since 2010 I am director of the research Master programme Molecular Mechanism of Disease and I am really fond to advertise both Nijmegen in general and this Master’s programme in particular.
While I have never been to Norway so far, I have been to Stockholm already for three times. So next to being happy to have the opportunity to spend time with the students from Nijmegen I am also looking forward to meet with some good friends and colleagues.
