Prof. dr. Luc van der Laan
Luc van der Laan is Professor of Liver Regenerative Medicine and serves as the Head of the Laboratory of Experimental Transplantation and Intestinal Surgery (LETIS) at the Erasmus MC Transplant Institute, Department of Surgery, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Netherlands. He is dedicated to pioneering research in regenerative medicine and organ transplantation. His academic journey commenced in Amsterdam, where he studied Biology at the University of Amsterdam and completed his PhD in Immunology at the VU in 1998. As a post-doctoral researcher, he moved to the life-sciences hub of San Diego, California, spending three years at Scripps Research Institute, focusing on islet transplantation and xenogenic infections (Nature 2000).
With over 225 international peer-reviewed publications, he has garnered numerous national and international scientific awards. He has also mentored many graduate and PhD students, nurturing the next generation of scientific talent. He and his team have made significant contributions to the field, including advancements of patient-specific organoids for modeling liver cancer (Acta Biomater. 2023, Nat. Med. 2018), elucidating novel pathways involved in branching morphogenesis in bile duct organoids (Cell Stem Cell 2022), and pioneering advanced decellularization methodologies for extracting extracellular matrix from human liver, bile duct, and tumor tissue (Biomater. 2022, Mater. Sci. Eng. C 2020). He also helped to build consensus on the new nomenclature for liver and pancreas organoids (Cell Stem Cell 2021).
Since 2023, he has held an additional appointment at Delft University of Technology as Medical Delta Professor and in Convergence Health Technology. Actively engaged in professional societies, Luc serves as a board member of the Dutch Society for Stem Cell Research (DSSCR) and the European Cell Therapy and Organ Regeneration Section of ESOT. His professional aspirations center on unlocking the potential of regenerative medicine utilizing organoids and biomaterials for liver diseases and the advancement of liver transplantation.
