Jan Verschuuren is professor of neuromuscular diseases and head of the Neurology department. He is trained as a neurologist and as an immunologist (SMBWO registered). He has always had a strong interest in neuroscience, immunology and muscle diseases. He is currently also serving as head of the Neuroscience Research Theme at the LUMC.

More information about Johannes Verschuuren

Jan Verschuuren is professor of neuromuscular diseases and head of the Neurology department. He is trained as a neurologist and as an immunologist (SMBWO registered). He has always had a strong interest in neuroscience, immunology and muscle diseases. He is currently also serving as head of the Neuroscience Research Theme at the LUMC.

Neuromuscular Diseases

My chair concerns neuromuscular diseases. There are approximately 600 neuromuscular diseases. Most are rare, or even ultra-rare, and they are caused by a genetic defect or an acquired immunological problem. In order to move properly, both the muscles and the peripheral nerves (the nerves outside the brain and spinal cord), as well as the special structures that connect the nerve cell to the muscle, are essential. Opening our eyes, speaking, swallowing, walking and exercising, every activity in our daily lives depends on the proper functioning of one or more of the 650 muscles in our body. Remarkably, each muscle disease has its own unique pattern of muscle weakness. This indicates that there are enormous differences between the muscles in our body. A muscle is not just a muscle, but is highly specialized depending on its location and function. For example, compare a tiny eye muscle, which produces little force with a high level of precision, with a thigh muscle, which is used to provide brute force for running or skating.

The research of the neuromuscular team at the LUMC focuses on five neuromuscular diseases, particularly those of the muscle and the nerve-muscle junction. This includes myasthenia gravis (MG) and Lambert-Eaton myasthenic syndrome (LEMS), Duchenne and Becker muscular dystrophy (DMD and BMD), inclusion body myositis (IBM), facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD), and oculopharyngeal muscular dystrophy (OPMD). Jan Verschuuren's clinical team acts as a national referral center for patients with MG, LEMS, DMD or BMD, and is involved in clinical, epidemiological, electrophysiological or immunological studies. The neuromuscular group at the LUMC participates in clinical trials and is intensively involved in translational research projects in close collaboration with the Human Genetics department.

Academic career

Jan Verschuuren trained as a neurologist at the Maastricht University Medical Center. The title of his dissertation (1989) was "Experimental Autoimmune Myasthenia Gravis. Antibodies, idiotypes and anti-idiotypes". Jan Verschuuren specialized in neuromuscular diseases and immunology, and was registered as an SMBWO immunologist in 1995. He worked at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York with Prof. Jerome Posner and Prof. Josep Dalmau on paraneoplastic autoimmune diseases, including Lambert-Eaton myasthenic syndrome. In 1995 he joined the staff of the Neurology Department of the LUMC. In 2010 he was appointed professor by special appointment of Neuromuscular Diseases with support from the Princess Beatrix Muscle Fund. The title of his inaugural lecture was “Tijd voor gespierde taal”. He has been head of the Neurology department since April 2017 and has been chairman of the Neuroscience Research Theme at the LUMC since 2020.

Jan Verschuuren has been active in the neuromuscular field for many years. He has more than 300 scientific publications, various reviews and several book chapters to his name.

Publications