Piet Borst (1934) studied medicine at the University of Amsterdam, where he received a PhD in biochemistry in 1961 and the MD degree in 1963, before spending two years as a research fellow at New York University.
In 1965 he was made associate and in 1969 full professor of physiological chemistry at the University of Amsterdam, where he subsequently held the chair of biochemistry and molecular biology since 1974. In 1983 he was appointed research director of the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam, while retaining a part-time university professorship of clinical biochemistry.
Professor Borst is a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the Academia Europaea, a foreign member of the Royal Society, London, a foreign associate of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, and a foreign honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, USA.
He has received various honours and prizes for his scientific work. He is a member of the European Molecular Biology Organisation, or EMBO; he sat on the EMBO’s council from 1978 to 1984 and chaired its Scientific Advisory Committee from 1987 to 1991. He served and serves on the Scientific Advisory Committees of several European research institutes and he has chaired the juries of the Jeantet Prize (Europe) and of the Sloan General Motors Prize (USA).
Since 1983, professor Borst writes a column for the scientific supplement of the Dutch paper NRC-Handelsblad.
Piet Borst received the Dr H.P. Heineken Prize for Biochemistry and Biophysics 1992 in recognition of his extraordinary record of scientific achievement in the fields of biochemistry and molecular biology.
Links:
Piet Borst Laboratory
