Hans Westerhoff

Not to be confused with Hans Westerhof.

Hans Westerhoff
Westerhoff in 2014
Born	Hans Victor Westerhoff (1953-01-14) 14 January 1953 (age 72)[2] Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Alma mater	University of Amsterdam (PhD)
Scientific career
Fields	Biological thermodynamics, Systems biology[1]
Institutions	Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam University of Manchester University of Amsterdam
Thesis	Mosaic non-equilibrium thermodynamics and (the control of) biological free-energy transduction (1983)
Doctoral advisor	Karel van Dam[2][3]
Website	www.manchester.ac.uk/research/hans.westerhoff

Hans Victor Westerhoff (born 14 January 1953)[2] is a Dutch biologist and biochemist who is professor of synthetic systems biology at the University of Amsterdam[4] and AstraZeneca professor of systems biology at the University of Manchester.[1] Currently he is a Chair of AstraZeneca and a director of the Manchester Centre for Integrative Systems Biology.[5][6]

Career

Westerhoff was born in Amsterdam, Netherlands. He was educated at the University of Amsterdam where he was awarded a PhD in 1983 for investigations of non-equilibrium thermodynamics and the control of biological thermodynamics supervised by Karel van Dam.[2] In 1996 he succeeded Ad Stouthamer as professor of microbiology at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.[7]

Research

At the beginning of his career Westerhoff worked in the area of non-equilibrium thermodynamics in relation to biological energy transduction.[8][9] His work on this topic led to a book written with Karel Van Dam.[10]

After being a coauthor of one of the first experimental papers to stimulate interest in metabolic control analysis[11] and participating in the group that proposed a harmonized terminology,[12] Westerhoff moved progressively towards working on multi-enzyme systems as his major activity, starting with an analysis of the effect of enzyme activity on metabolite concentrations.[13] He published many papers in this area, of which one may note an analysis of the control of regulatory cascades,[14] analysqis of glycolytic oscilations in yeast,[15] and showing that the in vivo behaviour of Trypanosoma brucei agreed with the kinetic properties of the glycolytic enzymes.[16]

Westerhoff and colleagues discovered magainin in the African clawed frog which helps it fight against bacteria.[17] In December 1996 he and his group discovered a nitric-oxide reductase of Paracoccus denitrificans.[18]

In conjunction with many other workers Westerhoff used a community approach to construct a consensus yeast metabolic network[19] and subsequently applied the same approach to human metabolism.[20]

References

1. "Hans Westerhoff". Google Scholar. Archived from the original on 18 December 2013. Retrieved 9 December 2013.
2. Prof. dr. H.V. Westerhoff, 1953- at the University of Amsterdam Album Academicum website
3. Academic Tree: Karel van Dam, Amsterdam
4. "Prof. Dr. H.V. (Hans) Westerhoff". University of Amsterdam. Archived from the original on 12 December 2013. Retrieved 9 December 2013.
5. "Professor Hans Westerhoff". University of Manchester. Archived from the original on 15 December 2013. Retrieved 9 December 2013.
6. Hans Westerhoff's publications indexed by the Scopus bibliographic database. (subscription required)
7. Martine Zuidweg (11 June 1997). "De confrontatie" (in Dutch). Trouw. Retrieved 19 July 2020.
8. Van der Meer, R; Westerhoff, H V; Van Dam, K (1980). "Linear relation between rate and thermodynamic force in enzyme-catalyzed reactions". Biochim. Biophys. Acta. 591 (2): 488–493. doi:10.1016/0005-2728(80)90179-6. PMID 7397133.
9. Westerhoff, H V; Hellingwerf, K J; Arents, J C; Scholte, B J; Van Dam, K (1981). "Mosaic non-equilibrium thermodynamics describes biological energy transduction". Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 78 (1): 3554–3558. Bibcode:1981PNAS...78.3554W. doi:10.1073/pnas.78.6.3554. PMC 319608. PMID 6267598.
10. Westerhoff, H V; Van Dam, K (1987). Thermodynamics and Control of Biological Free-Energy Transduction. Elsevier. ISBN 978-0-444-80783-0.
11. Groen, AK; Wanders, RJA; Westerhoff, HV; van de Meer, R; Tager, JM (1982). "Quantification of the contribution of various steps to the control of mitochondrial respiration". Journal of Biological Chemistry. 257 (6): 2754–2757. doi:10.1016/S0021-9258(19)81026-8. PMID 7061448.
12. Burns, J.A.; Cornish-Bowden, A.; Groen, A.K.; Heinrich, R.; Kacser, H.; Porteous, J.W.; Rapoport, S.M.; Rapoport, T.A.; Stucki, J.W.; Tager, J.M.; Wanders, R.J.A.; Westerhoff, H.V. (1985). "Control analysis of metabolic systems". Trends Biochem. Sci. 10: 16. doi:10.1016/0968-0004(85)90008-8.
13. Westerhoff, Hans V.; Chen, Yi-Der (1984). "How do enzyme activities control metabolite concentrations? An additional theorem in the theory of metabolic control". Eur. J. Biochem. 142 (2): 425–430. doi:10.1111/j.1432-1033.1984.tb08304.x. PMID 6745283.
14. Kahn, D; Westerhoff, H.V. (1991). "Control theory of regulatory cascades". J. Theor. Biol. 153 (2): 255–285. Bibcode:1991JThBi.153..255K. doi:10.1016/S0022-5193(05)80426-6. PMID 1686290.
15. Bier, M; Bakker, B. M.; Westerhoff, H. V. (2000). "How yeast cells synchronize their glycolytic oscillations: A perturbation analytic treatment". Biophys. J. 78 (3): 1087–93. Bibcode:2000BpJ....78.1087B. doi:10.1016/S0006-3495(00)76667-7. PMC 1300712. PMID 10692299.
16. Bakker, B M; Michels, P A M; Opperdoes, F R; Westerhoff, H V (1997). "Glycolysis in bloodstream form Trypanosoma brucei can be understood in terms of the kinetics of the glycolytic enzymes". J. Biol. Chem. 272 (6): 3207–3215. doi:10.1074/jbc.272.6.3207. PMID 9013556.
17. Westerhoff, H. V.; Zasloff, M.; Rosner, J. L.; Hendler, R. W.; Waal, A.; Gomes, A. V.; Jongsma, A. P. M.; Riethorst, A.; Juretic, D. (1995). "Functional Synergism of the Magainins PGLa and Magainin-2 in Escherichia coli, Tumor Cells and Liposomes" (PDF). European Journal of Biochemistry. 228 (2): 257–64. doi:10.1111/j.1432-1033.1995.0257n.x. PMID 7705337.
18. Boer, A. P. N.; Oost, J.; Reijnders, W. N. M.; Westerhoff, H. V.; Stouthamer, A. H.; Spanning, R. J. M. (1996). "Mutational Analysis of the nor Gene Cluster which Encodes Nitric-Oxide Reductase from Paracoccus denitrificans". European Journal of Biochemistry. 242 (3): 592–600. doi:10.1111/j.1432-1033.1996.0592r.x. PMID 9022686.
19. Herrgård, M. J.; Swainston, N.; Dobson, P.; Dunn, W. B.; Arga, K. Y. I.; Arvas, M.; Blüthgen, N.; Borger, S.; Costenoble, R.; Heinemann, M.; Hucka, M.; Le Novère, N.; Li, P.; Liebermeister, W.; Mo, M. L.; Oliveira, A. P.; Petranovic, D.; Pettifer, S.; Simeonidis, E; Smallbone, K; Spasic, I; Weichart, D.; Brent, R.; Broomhead, D. S.; Westerhoff, H. V.; Kirdar, B. L.; Penttilä, M.; Klipp, E.; Palsson, B. Ø.; Sauer, U.; Oliver, S. G.; Mendes, P.; Nielsen, J.; Kell, D.B. (2008). "A consensus yeast metabolic network reconstruction obtained from a community approach to systems biology". Nature Biotechnology. 26 (10): 1155–1160. doi:10.1038/nbt1492. PMC 4018421. PMID 18846089.
20. Thiele, I; Swainston, N; Fleming, R M T; Hoppe, A; Sahoo, S; Aurich, M K; Haraldsdottir, H; Mo, M L; Rolfsson, O; Stobbe, M D; Thorleifsson, S G; Agren, R; Bolling, C; Bordel, S; Chavali, A K; Dobson, P; Dunn, W B; Endler, L; Hala, D; Hucka, M; Hull, D; Jameson, D; Jonsson, J J; Juty, N; Keating, S; Nookaew, I; Le Novère, N; Malys, N; Mazein, A; Papin, J A; Price, N D; Selkov, E; Sigurdsson, M I; Simeonidis, E; Sonnenschein, N; Smallbone, K; Sorokin, A; van Beek, J H G M; Weichart, D; Goryanin, I; Nielsen, J; Westerhoff, H V; Kell, D B; Mendes, P; Palsson, B O (2013). "A community-driven global reconstruction of human metabolism". Nature Biotechnology. 31 (5): 419–425. doi:10.1038/nbt.2488. PMC 3856361. PMID 23455439.