Joost van Delft PhD
Associate Professor

Field of interest: Genetic toxicology and Toxicogenomics

Profile

After an MSc in biology and a PhD in Biochemistry at the University of Leiden, Dr. van Delft joined the Toxicology Division of TNO Nutrition and Food Research Institute in 1988. His research focused on the detection of DNA adducts and their mutagenic effects, combined with regulatory genotoxicity testing. From 1998 to 2005 Dr. van Delft was a registered toxicologist for the Dutch and European Societies of Toxicology, with specialization in genetic toxicology and occupational toxicology. Since 1999 he is Associate Professor at the Department of Health Risk Analysis and Toxicology, of Maastricht University, The Netherlands. His research interests are in unravelling environment-gene interactions with respect to the process of cancer induction. Currently, his main focus is on modulation of gene expression profiles by xenobiotic and endogenous compounds (mainly carcinogens) in order to unravel their mechanisms of action, to apply transcriptomics for risk assessment and classification of chemical carcinogens, and to develop new omics-based biomarkers for molecular epidemiology studies of human populations. Within various multicenter (inter)national projects (from the Netherlands Toxicogenomics Centre, and the EU FP6 Integrated Projects carcinoGENOMICS and NewGeneris) he leads activities on toxicogenomics in hazard assessment for carcinogenicity and hepatotoxicity. Currently, he leads a team of 4 PostDocs, 3 PhD students and 4 technicians. He is frequently invited as speaker at (inter)national scientific meetings, and is (co-)author of over 90 peer-reviewed papers in international journals. 

Dr. van Delft was the Dutch Councilor of the European Environmental Mutagen Society (EEMS) from 1999 to 2005, and is member of the Environmental Mutagen Society (EMS), the Dutch-Belgian Society for in vitro Methods (INVITROM), and of the Dutch Society of Toxicology (NVT). For the latter, he chaired the Section Genetic Toxicology from 1999 to 2005. Dr. van Delft is also a member of the editorial board of Mutagenesis and Toxicology in vitro.