About Physiology and PhysiomicsPhysiology is one of the oldest disciplines in medicine and its importance is nicely illustrated by the nobel awards which are since 1901 annually awarded for medicine or physiology. Physiology is the important discipline that studies the function of living systems including organisms, organs, cells, and biomolecules that exists in living systems. Our department traditionally focussed on the function of the cardiovascular system, lungs, kidneys and the gastrointestinal tract.
A hallmark in science was the elucidation of the human DNA sequence in 2003 which opened revolutionary avenues of science, introducing new areas as genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, etc. The timely questions is what can Physiologists contribute to these new exciting possibilities?
It is now time that we integrate our previously obtained knowledge to disseminate quantitative models describing the functional behavior of biological molecules, cells, tissues, organs, and organisms. Thus, Physiologists can now make the difference by going from genes to function, and that is what matters in life! Thus, Physiologists are ready for the next challenge in science, named Physiomics bringing our important discipline to the next level in the coming decades and beyond.
The department is chaired by René Bindels who together with business manager Nicolai Giling manages all the ongoing activities. Our research and teaching activities are supervised by our staff consisting of Jeroen de Baaij, Thijs Eijsvogels, Joost Hoenderop, Maria Hopman, Jojanneke Huck, Dick Thijssen and Jenny van der Wijst.