Unexpected role of glycolipids in protein sorting

Gerrit van Meer

Dr. Van Meer finished his doctoral studies in Chemical Biology at Utrecht University in the Netherlands in 1981. He then moved to the EMBL in Heidelberg where he worked as a postdoc until 1987. From 1987 until 1996, he supervised a group at the Department of Cell Biology at Utrecht University Medical School. In 1997, he obtained a position as Professor of Cell Biology and Histology at the Academic Medical Center of the University of Amsterdam. Since 2002, Dr. van Meer is a Professor of Membrane Enzymology at Utrecht University.

The van Meer lab is studying how and where various lipids are synthesized and degraded, and how the involved enzymes are regulated. His team also studies the proteins that are important for transport of lipids within and between cellular membranes, and how lipids function in the sorting, transport and activity of membrane proteins. He proposed with Kai Simons that lipid rafts function as platforms of protein sorting and signaling, found that multi-drug transporters play a role in moving lipids across membrane bilayers, and now focuses on how specific lipids play a crucial role in pigmentation.