W.J.G. Hoogendijk

Interview

CURRICULUM VITAE  
Prof.dr W.J. Hoogendijk was the first that was appointed by the National Research Counsil to complete his clinical research training in Psychiatry (PhD project: “Post-mortem changes in depression”) in combination with a medical specialisation in Psychiatry. He was awarded the two-yearly Ramaermedaille for Psychiatric research in the Netherlands by the Dutch Society for Psychiatry. He was also awarded the two-yearly young researchers medal by the Interdisciplinary Society for Biological Psychiatry. He was granted by the National Research Counsil as Clinical Research Fellow at the VUmc. He was appointed as member of the Health Counsil of the Netherlands by her Majesty the Queen. In 2003 he was appointed as full professor in Biological psychiatry at both the faculty of Medicine and the faculty of Earth and Life Sciences, in order to stimulate multidisciplinary collaboration. He is co-director of the center for neurogenomics and cognitive research (CNCR). Furthermore, he is member of the board of the largest genetic epidemiology program on depression and anxiety, ever performed in the Netherlands (NESDA), collaboration with GROUP (schizophrenia). He was member of the National Research Counsil committee on post-doctoral research grants and of the Dutch Brain Foundation. At present he also is chair of the Scientific Committee of the Department of Psychiatry, VUmc.

CURRENT PROJECTS
A translational pharmacogenomics approach to improve drug development strategies for psychiatric disorders?” 
Agency: Top Institute Pharma. Type : Multi-center Grant T5-203. Period :2007-2013

For the prediction of pharmaco-treatment outcome, and testing drug
efficacy in the clinical phase, there is a great need to apply pharmacogenomics
technologies including genetics, genome-wide expression studies. This way, we aim
to improve the classification of patient groups for better evaluation of randomized
trials and allowing for more focussed clinical trials leading to improved medications
in mood disorder and psychosis.
Animal models for psychiatric disorders, such as depression and schizophrenia
are very sparse. This restricts novel target finding and testing of lead compounds for
these diseases. In this workpackage ‘animal models’ an integrated analysis of novel
types of genetics (e.g. mouse inbred lines and cell lines), omics data, such as gene
expression and proteomics, and behavioral analysis will be used. We will select
inbred strains of mice with relevant genotype-phenotype characteristics to provide
new models of the patho-physiological conditions of psychiatric disorders, and we
will provide new tools, such as HT-phenotypic analysis and cell line expression
profiling for the drug discovery pipeline.
Therefore, we will perform both human studies (part I) and animal studies
(part II). The human part of the program is split into four projects (Ia-d). These
projects will be carried out by two post-docs and three PhD students The animal part
of the program is split into three projects (IIa-c). The main analyses of the three
projects will be brought together in a Ph.D. project; Two projects will be carried out
by expert technicians.
This way we expect to identify
predictors and response classifiers for pharmacotreatment outcome.

KEY PUBLICATIONS

1. Hoogendijk WJG, Sommer IEC, Pool ChW, Kamphorst W, Hofman MA, Eikelenboom P and Swaab DF. Lack of Association between Depression and Loss of Neurons in the Locus Coeruleus in Alzheimer’s Disease. Arch Gen Psychiatry 1999; 56: 45-51.

2. Hoogendijk WJG, Feenstra M, Botterblom M, Gilhuis J, Sommer IEC, Kamphorst W, Eikelenboom P and Swaab DF. Increased activity of surviving locus coeruleus neurons in Alzheimer’s disease. Annals of  Neurology 1999; 45: 82-91.

3. Meynen G., Unga A.Unmehopa, Joop J.van Heerikhuize, Michel A.Hofman, Dick F.Swaab, Witte J.G. Hoogendijk. Hypothalamic Oxytocin mRNA expression in Depression. Molecular Psychiatry. 2007; 12: 118-119.

4. Riemersma-van der Lek RF, Swaab DF, Twisk J, Hol EM, Hoogendijk WJ, Van Someren EJ. Effect of bright light and melatonin on cognitive and noncognitive function in elderly residents of group care facilities: a randomized controlled trial. JAMA. 2008 Jun 11;299(22):2642-55.

5. Hoogendijk WJ, Lips P, Dik MG, Deeg DJ, Beekman AT, Penninx BW. Depression is associated with decreased 25-hydroxyvitamin D and increased parathyroid hormone levels in older adults. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2008 May;65(5):508-12.