Farewell symposium for lecturer Peter Taschner: A decade of Genome-based Health

November 26, 2024 from 13:00 to 18:00

Hogeschool Leiden – F0.017

Farewell symposium for lecturer Peter Taschner: A decade of Genome-based Health

On Tuesday 26 November 2024, the Leiden Centre for Applied Bioscience will organise the symposium ‘A decade of Genome-based Health’. With this symposium, Peter Taschner will officially say goodbye as Lecturer Genome-based Health at Leiden University of Applied Sciences.

As a boy of eight, our lecturer Peter Taschner already had a fascination for nature. A career in science followed, the last 10 years of which as a lecturer at our university. On November 26, he will say goodbye with the symposium ‘A decade of Genome-based Health’.

Over the past decade, the lecturer led the Genome-based Health research group at the Leiden Centre for Applied Bioscience, the knowledge centre of the Faculty of Science & Technology. Here, he conducted research into health issues and the question of how DNA information can be used to help people make the right health decisions. In this way, he made an important contribution to the development of knowledge and applications in the field of genome research (our complete set of DNA material) and personalised medicine.

After a PhD at the UvA and a postdoc position in Leiden, Peter made the switch to the Leiden Faculty of Medicine in 1992. There he started at the Human Genetics department, tracking down genes for hereditary brain disorders and later for cancer. At the time, still looking for a needle in a haystack, as the lecturer himself describes it. He was thus at the cradle of genetic research, because the field, in combination with the possibilities of the internet, gained momentum during his career.

In 2015, he started as a lecturer at the university where he continued his research. A career he looks back on with due pride: “I find it incredible how fast technological developments are going. I am convinced that the ever-growing knowledge about DNA in combination with technology contributes enormously to better public health. And I consider myself lucky that I have been able to work for 40 years in a research field where I could marvel at genetics every day: the biological science that explains heredity.”

More information and registration

During the symposium on Tuesday 26 November 2024 from 13:00 to 18:00 – with a farewell speech by Peter Taschner and various contributions from colleagues – we as a university will say goodbye in a fitting manner. Do you want to be there?

Important detail: This event will be in Dutch.