Hans Clevers on Becoming a Scientist
  Hans Clevers     Biography    
Recorded: 29 May 2008

There was a bit of an awkward route. I actually studied biology first, and then took up medical school at about the same time in --. Did two separate studies, graduated from both, was going to be a pediatrician, then decided to spend a year in science, liked it so much more that I realized I didn’t-- I shouldn’t become a real doctor. I was not good with—I liked patients, but I was a little bit impatient with them. I then decided to go for a post-doc at Boston to Dana Farber, where I really learned the trade.

So I went to university in ‘75, that’s when I started biology. So I came out of high school at the age of eighteen. University starts right after high school in Holland. I did my seven years of biology, part of that actually in Nairobi, in Kenya. Where I did some rotations down at NIH in Bethesda. During that time I did medical school, and I graduated from both biology and medical school in ‘84. And my Ph.D. was in ‘85. My post-doc at the Dana Farber was still ‘89, and I returned to Holland in ’89.

Hans Clevers obtained his MD degree in 1984 and his PhD degree in 1985 from the University Utrecht, the Netherlands. His postdoctoral work (1986-1989) was done with Cox Terhorst at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute of the Harvard University, Boston, USA.

From 1991-2002 Hans Clevers was Professor in Immunology at the University Utrecht and, since 2002, Professor in Molecular Genetics. Since 2002, he is director of the Hubrecht Institute in Utrecht.

Hans Clevers has been a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences since 2000 and is the recipient of several awards, including the Dutch Spinoza Award in 2001, the Swiss Louis Jeantet Prize in 2004, the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Katharine Berkan Judd Award in 2005, the Israeli Rabbi Shai Shacknai Memorial Prize in 2006, and the Dutch Josephine Nefkens Prize for Cancer Research and the German Meyenburg Cancer Research Award in 2008. He obtained an ERC Advanced Investigator grant in 2008. He is Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur since 2005.

http://www.hubrecht.eu/research/clevers/leader.html

SCIENTISTS SPEAKING ABOUT BECOMING A SCIENTIST
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