Hans Clevers

Research Clevers's early career focused on the Wnt signaling pathway. His group identified the TCF1 protein, a member of the TCF gene family and a crucial downstream component of the Wnt signaling pathway, making it central in immune responses, embryonic development and tissue repair. His interest in the gastrointestinal tract began with the discovery that another TCF family member, the TCF4 protein, is required in forming intestinal crypts. Collaborating with Bert Vogelstein, he found that in colon cancer where the APC gene is doubly mutated, TCF family members activate catenin beta-1, which then enhances the expression of many genes that cause cancer transformation, connecting the Wnt signaling pathway with colon cancer.

In 2007, Clevers's group identified a marker for stem cells of the small and large intestines, LGR5, itself also a target of the Wnt signaling pathway. This led to his finding that LGR5 is a stem cell marker in other organs as well, including the stomach and hair follicles.

Building on this discovery, in 2009, his group published a landmark paper, describing for the first time how organoids, which are 3-dimensional in vitro structures that behave anatomically and molecularly like the organ from which they are derived, were generated from adult stem cells, creating organoids of the small intestine. Clevers's group has applied this technology to culturing organoids from other organs, such as the stomach as well as from various cancer types, including cancer of the breast and the ovaries. This platform has since been applied in personalized medicine, by generating organoids from specific patients to screen for drugs. This is not limited to cancer but is applicable to other diseases as well (for example, cystic fibrosis). His current major research interest is in using organoids derived from adult stem cells to study the molecular mechanism of tissue and cancer development.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Clevers's group modelled the infection of SARS-CoV-2 using lung organoids.

Honours and awards Member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (1999) Member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (2000) Spinoza Prize (2001) Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine (2004) Knight of the Legion of Honour (2005) Member of Academia Europaea (2009) United European Gastroenterology Federation Research Prize (2010) Ernst Jung Prize for Medicine (2011) International Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2012) Dr A.H. Heineken Prize for Medicine (2012) Knight of the Order of the Netherlands Lion (2012) Member of Koninklijke Hollandsche Maatschappij der Wetenschappen (2012) Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences (2013) International Member of the National Academy of Sciences (2014) Fellow of the American Association for Cancer Research Academy Foreign Associate of the French Academy of Sciences (2015) Pour le Mérite (2016) Körber European Science Prize (2016) Knight Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (2018) Foreign Member of the Royal Society (2019) Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (2019) Keio Medical Science Prize (2019) The Pezcoller Foundation-AACR International Award for Extraordinary Achievement in Cancer Research (2021) Abarca Prize, research into organoid technology, (2025)