Sander Leeuwenburgh

Sander Leeuwenburgh was born July 22nd, 1977 in Gouda (Netherla­nds). He studied Materials Science and Engineering at Delft University of Technology and graduated at the Laboratory of Inorganic Chemistry in 2001 (cum laude). He obtained his PhD degree at the Radboud University Medical Center in 2006 (cum laude). He was appointed as assistant professor at the same university in 2008. From August 2009 until December 2010 he was visiting scholar at the Department of Biomaterials at Kyoto University Medical Hospital (Kyoto, Japan). In June 2015 he was appointed as associate professor to lead his research group on nanostructured biomaterials. During his scientific career he received several awards and grants from organizations such as the Dutch Technology Foundation STW (NWO VENI and VIDI grants) and the Dutch Self-Healing Materials Program. He supervised 11 PhD students and published more than 100 papers. His research focuses on i) the development of injectable, self-healing nanocomposites, ii) development of tough, load-bearing bone substitutes, and iii) functionalization of organic and inorganic bone substitute materials with therapeutic biomolecules such as growth factors, anticancer drugs and antibiotics in order to upgrade their biological efficacy.