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Gert van Ommen

Gert-Jan B. van Ommen, PhD, (1947) is Professor in Human Genetics and head of the Department of Human Genetics of Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC). He is the founder of the Leiden Genome Technology Center (LGTC), a principal genomics facility in the Netherlands, and the Director and Principal Investigator of the Center for Medical Systems Biology (CMSB), one of the four Centers of Excellence established in 2003 by the Netherlands Genome Initiative. The CMSB is a joint initiative of six Universities and Institutions: Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden University, Free University Medical Center and Free University in Amsterdam, TNO Leiden and Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam. The aim of the CMSB is to improve diagnosis, therapy and prevention of common diseases and rare variants thereof.

Van Ommen's major research interests are neuromuscular and neurodegenerative diseases (with a focus on Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, DMD, and Huntington Disease); development and application of genome research (with a focus on chromosomes 4, 16 and X) and diagnostic technology for disease study, diagnosis, therapy and prevention, including the societal aspects of genetic advances. Members of his department have contributed to the finding of the genes defective in Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, Huntington Disease, Polycystic Kidney Disease, Hereditary Neuropathies, Fragile X, Rubinstein-Taybi Syndrome, Familial Hemiplegic Migraine and Episodic Ataxia; and to the mapping and identification of the repeat-deletion mutations in Facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy. He has pioneered the development of several mapping and mutation detection techniques, including generating the first megabase map of a human gene (DMD) by Pulsed-field electrophoresis, the development of multicolor FISH for cytogenetics and the Protein Truncation Test (PTT), which is now widely used in cancer diagnostics. A current activity in his group is the development of antisense-based exon skipping as a therapy for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.

He is vice-president and past president (2002-2003) of the European Society of Human Genetics, editor-in-chief of the European Journal of Human Genetics, and has been president of HUGO, the international Human Genome Organization (1998-1999, senior vp 2000-2003) and of the Dutch Society of Human Genetics (1993-2000). He is present and past member of several National, EU and HUGO committees in the fields of Genetics, Innovative Health Care, Genomics, Bioinformatics, Ethics and IP aspects.

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