Dr. Menno Hoekstra is an Assistent Professor at the Division of BioTherapeutics.

More information about Menno Hoekstra

Biography

Menno Hoekstra obtained his PhD from Leiden University in 2005 for his thesis entitled “Modulation of hepatic gene expression: implications for lipid metabolism” under supervision of Prof.dr. Theo J.C. van Berkel. Since then, he has established an independent line of research within the division of Biopharmaceutics/BioTherapeutics that is aimed at identifying molecular moieties involved in lipid and glucose metabolism that can possibly be used as targets in the context of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. He designed and managed the departmental research within the TIPharma project T2-110 on nuclear receptors. In 2008 and 2012, he received two Postdoc Grants (Dekker 2008T070 and 2012T080) from the Dutch Heart Foundation to study the crosslinks between cholesterol metabolism,  adrenal glucocorticoid homeostasis and cardiovascular disease. This project laid the foundation for the discovery that adrenal cholesterol uptake via scavenger receptor BI is of critical importance for the synthesis of glucocorticoids not only in mice but also in man (N Engl J Med. 2011 Jan 13;364(2):136-45). Follow-up studies are ongoing to decipher the impact of specific gene products on adrenal cholesterol metabolism and glucocorticoid homeostasis. In addition, recent studies focus on the role of proteoglycan 4 (PRG4) and protein arginine N-methyltransferase 3 (PRMT3) in glucose and lipid metabolism.

Primary research interests: Metabolism, Endocrinology, Hepatology, Cardiovascular systems

Publications