Impact
Jan Hoeijmakers is a molecular geneticist whose work links DNA damage and repair to aging. Since joining Erasmus University Rotterdam in 1981, and as Professor of Molecular Genetics since 1993, his group has identified human DNA repair genes (including isolation of the first human DNA repair gene, recognised in 1986), developed live-cell imaging methods to study repair, and generated mouse models of human repair-deficiency syndromes such as Cockayne syndrome and trichothiodystrophy. These models show that accumulating DNA damage drives segmental accelerated aging, with the severity and type of repair defect shaping the aging and cancer phenotype. His group has also described DNA damage-driven transcriptional stress as a contributor to aging and reported effects of nutritional interventions on repair-deficient mice, with proposed relevance to dementia, chemotherapy and ischemia-reperfusion injury. His honours include the Louis Jeantet Prize (1995), the NWO Spinoza Prize, EMBO membership, ERC Advanced and Proof-of-Concept grants, and a Royal Netherlands Academy professorship (2011-2016). He also leads a group at the Princess Maxima Center studying nutritional effects on genomic stability and holds a guest professorship at the University of Cologne. His work bears directly on genomic instability as a driver of aging.
Metrics
- h-index 146 · google scholar as of 2026-09-23 source ↗
Research output
562 works · 65,328 citations · h-index 125 OpenAlex ↗
Selected publications
- Genome maintenance mechanisms for preventing cancer ↗ 2001 · 3,943 citations
- DNA repair and mutagenesis ↗ 1996 · 2,286 citations
- DNA Damage, Aging, and Cancer ↗ 2009 · 2,251 citations
- An Essential Role for Senescent Cells in Optimal Wound Healing through Secretion of PDGF-AA ↗ 2014 · 2,085 citations
- Targeted Apoptosis of Senescent Cells Restores Tissue Homeostasis in Response to Chemotoxicity and Aging ↗ 2017 · 1,482 citations