Huib Ovaa's Biography

Huib Ovaa, Group Leader, Netherlands Cancer Institute

Prof. Dr. Huib Ovaa received PhD training in organic synthesis in the labs of the late Prof. Dr. J.H. van Boom (Leiden University) and shortly in the lab of Prof. Dr. S. Blechert (TU-Berlin) specializing in olefin metathesis reactions on sugar derivatives. As a postdoc in the lab of Prof. Dr. H.L. Ploegh at Harvard Medical School, he pioneered the development of ubiquitin-based probes using chemistry that relies on inteins. After a 2 year period of post-doctoral work in this lab, he obtained a junior faculty position as instructor in pathology at Harvard Medical School. He was subsequently recruited to join the Netherlands Cancer Institute as a group leader to continue his research and to expand research into ubiquitin chemistry, proteasome action and MHC class I antigen presentation. Research in the lab is centered on one central theme: chemical biology of Ub-mediated proteolysis and antigen presentation, and is currently divided into four subtopics: 1. Ubiquitin chemistry; 2. Activity and inhibition of the ubiquitin modifying machinery; 3. Proteasome activity; and 4. MHC class I antigen presentation. Prof. Ovaa is founder and C.S.O. of the Dutch company UbiQ B.V., a company specialized in assay reagents to study the ubiquitin field.