August B. Smit is a Professor at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He was trained as a molecular biologist and obtained his Ph.D in 1990. After working as a Postdoctoral Fellow at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, he started his research group in Amsterdam in 1992. Currently, he is the Scientific Director of the Center for Neurogenomics and Cognitive Research (CNCR) at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, which hosts 160 neuroscience researchers. Within CNCR, he heads a group of 35 researchers in the field of molecular and cellular mechanisms of neuronal synaptic plasticity. His work is centered around understanding neuronal and synaptic (dys)function in animal models and the human postmortem brain regarding neurological and psychiatric diseases.
Robert H. Henning is a distinguished Professor of Pharmacology at University Medical Center Groningen. He is a member of the Certification Board of the Dutch Society of Pharmacology, as well as a member of the Scientific Advisory Board at the Center for Clinical Investigations, Westfalische Wilhelm’s University in Munster (D). Additionally, he is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board at Sulfateq BV.
Ronald E Van Kesteren is a Full Professor at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Team Leader at the Center for Neurogenomics and Cognitive Research (CNCR). Van Kesteren earned an MSc in Biology from the
University of Leiden in 1990, and a PhD in Neuroscience from VU University Amsterdam in 1994. He received post-doctoral training in the labs of Prof. Naweed Syed and Prof. Andy Bulloch (University of Calgary, Canada), and Prof. Wijnand Geraerts (VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands). He was awarded Post-Doctoral Fellowships from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research (AHFMR), and the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). His current research focuses on early neuronal network changes in Alzheimer’s disease.
