A small introduction

About Us

Macrobian-Biotech was founded in May 2017 by Dr. Lars van der Heide and Prof. dr. Marten Smidt. Its primary goal is to perform pre-clinical research that leads to noval treatments for disorders that affect the midbrain dopamine system. The company is currently housed at the Amsterdam Science Park, the heart of academic excellence in the Netherlands.

Dr. Lars P. van der Heide

Dr. van der Heide earned his PhD at the UMC-Utrecht, The Netherlands, in the research team of Prof. Smidt. He then moved to Leiden and later to Sweden (Uppsala) to perform several post-doc research programmes in the direction of cellular mechanisms of cancer. Due to this, he became a renowned expert in ligand receptor interaction and intracellular communication. He returned 2011 to the Netherlands as assistant professor at the Molecular Neuroscience group of Prof. Smidt at the UvA. Here he specialized in molecular mechanisms related to Parkinson’s disease. He delivers 17 years of experience in signal transduction and is thereby a crucial asset to the company.

Prof. dr. Marten P. Smidt

Prof. Smidt earned his PhD in molecular biology from Groningen University, The Netherlands. He performed a postdoc at the UMC-Utrecht and became full professor in Developmental Neuroscience in 2009. He then moved in 2011 to the University of Amsterdam (UvA) where he has a tenured position as full Professor in Molecular Neuroscience. He holds 25 years of experience in molecular programming of midbrain dopamine neurons with about 100 peer-reviewed publications in that field. Next to this he is appointed director of the Swammerdam institute for Life Sciences (SILS) at the UvA, which harbors ~250 researchers in the life sciences domain.

Background

Neurological disorders and the behavioral deficits accompanying these, are among the most severe diseases affecting 100 millions of individuals across the globe. It has been a major challenge for researchers to find solutions that produce effective treatments paradigms and until now with relative low success due to the extreme complexity of the human brain. Together with the fact that we are facing an increasing population of aged individuals, the need for such paradigms becomes more and more essential.

||    A healthy brain is fundamental for Human life and well-being, therefore it is crucial to develop treatment paradigms for its dysfunction    ||

What we aim for

Mission

Fundamental research in the neuroscience field with new technologies in genetics and transcriptomics together with far reaching gene function research has led to the discovery of mechanistic details that is unprecedented.

The founders of Macrobian-Biotech are at the heart of such endeavors and that has lead to the identification of specific molecular pathways that regulate dopamine production specifically in midbrain dopamine neurons. Dysfunction of these neurons are at the center of neuro-psychiatric and neurological disorders such as Schizophrenia and Parkinson‘s. It is the ambition of Macrobian-Biotech to be at the forefront of clinical trial ready compound development vivifying novel treatments of neurological and neuropsychiatric diseases.