Jan de Boer is an independent scientific expert with a broad track record across stem cell biology, tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, biomaterials engineering, high-throughput screening and data science. After a successful academic career as a full professor at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), he is now transitioning to new opportunities in the biotech industry while maintaining a formal affiliation with TU/e to supervise ongoing PhD projects.
He is internationally recognized for several landmark contributions, including the development of the TopoChip high-throughput screening platform for identifying cell-instructive surface topographies, the creation of the TTD mouse model for premature ageing, the introduction of endochondral ossification as a strategy for bone tissue engineering, and advances in decellularized anterior cruciate ligament grafts. His work has significantly shaped the molecular understanding of cell–biomaterial interactions and established him as one of the early pioneers in applying machine learning to biomaterials discovery.
Beyond academia, he co-founded Materiomics B.V. to commercialize the TopoChip technology and is co-inventor on five patents. He has extensive industry collaboration experience, including longstanding partnerships with Organon and Progentix (now Kuros) in the field of bone regeneration, and has led multiple translational programmes with pre-clinical validation. He received an NWO Vidi grant, served as editor of two scientific textbooks and was Fellow at Darwin College, Cambridge.
He also brings substantial advisory and leadership experience He served for eight years on the board of the Netherlands Society for Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering, including two years as its chair. He was a consultant to DNage and acted as visiting professor at the Pufendorf Institute for Advanced Studies in Lund, where he guided interdisciplinary teams in developing data-driven approaches to biomaterials discovery.
Motivated by BioMACs’ mission, which strongly resonates with the principles behind the TopoChip and the broader vision of data-driven biomaterials innovation, he aims to contribute his scientific and translational expertise to accelerate the company’s development pipeline. He believes that true progress arises when disciplines converge, and sees BioMACs’ integration of materials science, cell biology, data science, chemistry, and clinical insight as a particularly powerful foundation for addressing unmet medical needs.