Hans Westerhoff

Westerhoff was born in Amsterdam, Netherlands. He was educated at the University of Amsterdam where he was awarded a PhD in 1983 for investigations of non-equilibrium thermodynamics and the control of biological thermodynamics supervised by Karel van Dam.^[1] In 1996 he succeeded Ad Stouthamer as professor of microbiology at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.^[7]

At the beginning of his career Westerhoff worked in the area of non-equilibrium thermodynamics in relation to biological energy transduction.^[8][9] His work on this topic led to a book written with Karel Van Dam.^[10]

After being a coauthor of one of the first experimental papers to stimulate interest in metabolic control analysis^[11] and participating in the group that proposed a harmonized terminology,^[12] Westerhoff moved progressively towards working on multi-enzyme systems as his major activity, starting with an analysis of the effect of enzyme activity on metabolite concentrations.^[13] He published many papers in this area, of which one may note an analysis of the control of regulatory cascades,^[14] analysqis of glycolytic oscilations in yeast,^[15] and showing that the in vivo behaviour of Trypanosoma brucei agreed with the kinetic properties of the glycolytic enzymes.^[16]

Westerhoff and colleagues discovered magainin in the African clawed frog which helps it fight against bacteria.^[17] In December 1996 he and his group discovered a nitric-oxide reductase of Paracoccus denitrificans.^[18]

In conjunction with many other workers Westerhoff used a community approach to construct a consensus yeast metabolic network^[19] and subsequently applied the same approach to human metabolism.^[20]