PhD, Professor, Head of Department

Professor van Schooten studied biology at the Free University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, where he specialised in immunology, molecular microbiology and molecular toxicology and graduated in 1985. In 1991 he obtained his PhD in Chemical Carcinogenesis at the University of Leiden on the thesis “Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon-DNA adducts in mice and humans”.

Prof. van Schooten worked from 1985 until 1991 at the Department of Molecular Carcinogenesis from the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam focused on the relation between inhalatory carcinogenic exposures and pulmonary carcinogenicity. During this period he underwent his PhD training. In 1991 he joined the Department of Health Risk Analysis and Toxicology, of the University of Maastricht. Since 1999 he is Head of the Department, and since 2000 Leader of the Division IV within the Nutrition Toxicology and Environment Research Institute Maastricht (NUTRIM). The general approach of research is within the field of molecular epidemiology, applying dietary biomarkers for exposure and for early biological effects, ultimately to identify certain groups of subjects at a higher risk for disease. His research interests are in unravelling nutrition-gene interactions with respect to the carcinogenic and atherosclerotic process.

Prof. van Schooten is member of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) and is active as a member of the membership committee of the AACR-Molecular Epidemiology Group. He is a member of the Dutch Society of Toxicology (NVT) and frequently acts as a peer reviewer of papers submitted to various international journals and of research proposals.