Stijn Agten

Assistant Professor

Dr Stijn Agten obtained his bachelor’s and master’s in Biomedical Engineering at the Technical University Eindhoven with a specialisation in Chemical Biology. Subsequently, he performed his PhD research at CARIM, where he focsused on the development of bioconjugation techniques and their application in cardiovascular research with a special focus on oxime ligation. After obtaining his PhD (cum laude), he was awarded with a CARIM talent fellowship and moved to the University of Sydney, School of Chemistry, where he focussed on the synthesis of direct thrombin inhibitors found in hematophagous organisms and their potential therapeutic applications.

In 2018, he returned to the Department of Biochemistry within CARIM and was granted a Kootstra talent fellowship. His research focusses on chemical protein synthesis of (post-translationally-modified) cardiovascular targets. This involves solid phase peptide synthesis, multiple peptide ligation methods and bioconjugate techniques for site specific labeling of proteins. Synthesised targets are subsequently evaluated in biological systems to gain knowledge on their function or to investigate their therapeutic potential. In 2019, Stijn was awarded with a Dr E Dekker grant from the Dutch Heart Foundation.