Erasmus MC : Derk ten Berge

Derk ten Berge studied chemistry at Utrecht University (the Netherlands). His PhD work, performed at the Hubrecht Institute for Developmental Biology and Stem Cell Research, focused on the role of homeobox genes in embryonic patterning, and demonstrated how these genes, by controlling the expression of signalling proteins, regulate cell behaviour in the developing embryo. He was awarded a Human Frontiers Long Term Fellowship and moved to the lab of Prof. Roel Nusse at Stanford University where he investigated the role of Wnt proteins, important signalling molecules with roles in embryonic patterning, cancer, and adult homeostasis, in embryonic development and stem cell self renewal. He discovered that Wnt proteins are essential to maintain the undifferentiated state of embryonic progenitor cells during development, and that these proteins support self renewal of such cells and other types of stem cells in culture as well. In 2009 he started a research group at the Erasmus Stem Cell Institute, focusing on the basic mechanisms of stem cell self renewal by extracellular factors, and the translation of new insights into these mechanisms towards clinical approaches of regeneration. Current projects focus on the role of Wnt signals in self renewal and differentiation of embryonic stem cells, epiblast stem cells, and hematopoietic stem cells and, in collaboration with Prof. Jan Cornelissen, ErasmusMC, on methods to expand human hematopoietic stem cells in culture for treatment of malignant hematological disorders.

• ten Berge et al (2001) Development 128, 2929-2938.
• van Raaij et al. (2001) Cytometry 45, 13-18.
• Brouwer et al. (2003) Mech. Dev. 120, 241-252.
• Chen et al. (2003) Science 301, 1391-1394.
• Rulifson at al. (2007) Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 104, 6247-6252.
• Kim et al. (2007) J. Bone Mineral Res. 22, 1913-1923.
• Brugmann et al.(2007) Development 134, 3283-3295.
• Fuerer et al. (2008) EMBO Reports 9, 134-138.
• Morrell et al. (2008) PLoS ONE 3, e2930.
• Groen et al. (2008) Cancer Research 68, 6969-6977.
• ten Berge et al. (2008) Development 135, 3247-3257.
• Leucht et al. (2008) Semin. Cell Dev. Biol. 19, 434-443.
• Nusse et al. (2008) Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology 73, 59-66.
• ten Berge et al. (2008) Cell Stem Cell 3, 508-518.
• Costa et al. (2009) BMC Genomics 10, 499-.