Nick Hoogenraad

Nick Hoogenraad, is an Australian biochemist. He is currently Emeritus Professor of Biochemistry at La Trobe University. Hoogenraad's work led to the discovery of the mitochondrial unfolded protein response.

Hoogenraad was born in The Hague to Ton and Lique Hoogenraad, and was one of six children. Hoogenraad completed a bachelor of agricultural science, by the end of which time he had "fallen in love with biochemistry", partly due to reading The Origin of Life by Soviet biochemist Alexander Oparin. He completed his Ph.D. under agricultural biochemist Frank Hird, using biochemical and electron microscopy techniques to compile the first atlas of the bacteria in the rumen of sheep. Working with the rumen bacteria was unpleasant and another member of Hird's lab, Max Marginson, started calling Hoogenraad "rumencrud" in allusion to this. This behaviour stopped after Hoogenraad placed some foul-smelling butyric acid on Marginson's jacket. An auditorium in the LIMS1 building is named after him.

His most recent research interest is cachexia. In 2015 his team published research showing how mice that do not have the receptor for a protein called Fn14 do not develop cachexia in cancer. Mice treated with anti-Fn14 antibodies also do not develop cachexia.