Clemens van Blitterswijk
| Clemens van Blitterswijk | |
|---|---|
 Clemens van Blitterswijk | |
| Born | The Hague, Netherlands |
| Nationality |
 Netherlands |
| Fields | Biomedical Engineering, Biomaterials, Tissue Engineering |
| Institutions | University of Twente |
| Alma mater | University of Leiden |
| Notable awards |
Jean Leray award; The Marie Parijs award; The Klein award; George Winter award; |
Clemens A. van Blitterswijk (born 7 July 1957 in The Hague) graduated as cell biologist at Leiden University in 1982. He defended his PhD thesis in 1985 at the same university on artificial ceramic middle ear implants, for which he was awarded the Jean Leray award, the Marie Parijs award and the Klein award in the following years. He continued his research primarily on bone replacement, with extensions to cartilage and skin substitution.
Today most of van Blitterswijk's research deals with tissue engineering applications. He has authored and co-authored over 200 scientific papers, guided more than 40 PhD students as promotor or co-promotor, is inventor on numerous patents, and frequently serves as invited speaker or chairman at international conferences. For his more recent work he received the George Winter Award of the European Society for Biomaterials and was appointed Fellow of Biomaterials Science and Engineering by the international liaison committee.
He acts and has acted on numerous advisory organs relating directly to life and material sciences, or to the economic applications thereof, and held positions such as chairman of the Dutch Society for Biomaterials and treasurer of the European Society for Biomaterials.
During his career van Blitterswijk has co-founded four biomedical companies and held several functions in those organizations. He acted as CEO of IsoTis, a public life sciences company, from 1996 to 2002. In total he raised over 120 million euros in funding through equity and/or grants. Resulting from his work 10 implant technologies were brought into clinical evaluation in humans.
Van Blitterswijk is considered a pioneer in the field of Materiomics which deals the complexities of materials in tissue engineering. He has recently published a textbook on tissue engineering.
In May 2012, van Blitterswijk was elected to the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW).[1]
Today van Blitterswijk holds an appointment at University of Twente where, as chair of the Department of Tissue Regeneration, he heads a team of PhD students active in the field of tissue engineering. In January 2014 it was announced that Blitterswijk and his research group will relocate to Maastricht University.[2]
Sources & External Links
- Clemens van Blitterswijk faculty profile
- Tissue Engineering Book
- Search Scholarly Works by Clemens van Blitterswijk