Dr. J.J.F.P. Luiken

I studied Biology at the University of Utrecht (Netherlands) and graduated in 1988, with specialism in biochemistry and molecular genetics. After military service and a PhD-project on liver metabolism at the Univeristy of Amsterdam, I started working at Maastricht University as postdoc in November 1994 to study the role of fatty acid transporters in the heart. Starting in 1997, I worked for 2½ years in the laboratory of prof. Bonen, University of Waterloo, Canada, to learn novel techniques to study fatty acid uptake by muscle tissues. In June 1999, I returned to Maastricht on a postdoctoral Dekker stipendium of the Netherlands Heart Foundation to introduce these novel techniques. In 2000, I won the prestigious FASEB-award on Endocrinology and Metabolism for my discovery of a novel mechanism of acute regulation of fatty acid uptake via translocation of fatty acid transporters from intracellular stores to the cell surface. In 2002, I was awarded a prestigious research carreer grant (VIDI) from the Netherlands Scientific Organization to continue my research on the identification of the cellular machinery involved in fatty acid transporter translocation and to study the role of fatty acid transporters in cardiac disease (diabetic cardiomyopathy). In 2008, I was appointed as Associate Professor within the department of Genetics & Cell Biology. Since 2021, I am also staff scientist at the department of Clinical Genetics.

Upon my initial discoveries that (i) CD36 is the predominant fatty acid transporter in the heart, and (ii) CD36 activity is regulated by reversible translocation from intracellular stores (endosomes) to the sarcolemma, I discovered that in the rodent diabetic heart, CD36 is permanently relocated from the endosomes to the sarcolemma without changes in expression. The increase in cell surface abundance of CD36 will lead to chronically increased myocardial fatty acid uptake, lipid accumulation, insulin resistance, and finally cardiac dysfunction. My further research on the causes of this aberrant CD36 subcellular localization revealed that alterations in the CD36-dedicated trafficking machinery are responsible for sarcolemmal CD36 relocation. Because the CD36-dedicated trafficking machinery is completely unexplored, my recent studies focused on screening for and identifying CD36-dedicated trafficking proteins, and their altered functioning in the diabetic heart. The ultimate aim is to use these proteins as targets for a novel treatment against diabetic cardiomyopathy, the leading cause of death among diabetic patients.

I am (co)author of > 200 publications, of which more than half as first/last author. My publications have received > 20,000 citations and my Hirsch factor (via GoogleScholar) is ~80. I have been a member of the Editorial Boards of a.o. Archives of Physiology and Biochemistry, Frontiers in Fatty Acid and Lipid Physiology, and the International Journal of Molecular Sciences. I was also (co-)organizer of a series of international conferences on lipid binding proteins held in Maastricht. From 1999 till present, I received funding from Neth. Scientific Organization., Neth. Heart Foundation, Neth. Diabetes Foundation, EU grants (total sum: > 3 M€).