Academic Medical Center of the University of Amsterdam (AMC)

The AMC is one of the foremost research institutions in the Netherlands, as well as one of the largest hospitals.  Over 7000 people work here to provide integrated patient care, fundamental and clinical scientific research, and teaching. The AMC complex houses the university hospital and the faculty of medicine of the University of Amsterdam as well as the Emma Children’s Hospital, the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, and the Amsterdam Institute for Global Health and Development. A number of biotech companies (some of which are AMC spin-offs) are also located on the premises. This concentration of expertise makes the center a breeding ground for fruitful scientific collaboration. Some 1500 members of staff are either fully or partially employed in medical research, which is regularly subjected to scrutiny by a panel of international scientists. The AMC fully endorses the principles of the European Charter for Researchers: https://www.amc.nl/web/Research/ResearchAMC/HR-Excellence.htm. In addition the AMC hosts the AMC Graduate School that organizes doctorate level academic training of AMC PhD students. At the Laboratory of Experimental Virology, Virus Discovery Unit, fully equipped research labs, two BSL-2 and one BSL-3 laboratory are available. The AMC hosts a sequencing facility with ABI 9700 machines for Sanger sequencing, and a fully operational next generation sequencing laboratory with two Ion Torrent platforms and a MiSeq Illumina system.

Webpage: https://www.amc.nl/web/Research.htm

Key publications

• van der Hoek L, Pyrc K, Jebbink MF, Vermeulen-Oost W, Berkhout RJ, Wolthers KC, Wertheim-van Dillen PM, Kaandorp J, Spaargaren J, Berkhout B. Identification of a new human coronavirus. Nature Med (2004) 10:368-373.
• van der Hoek L, Sure K, Ihorst G, Stang A, Pyrc K, Jebbink MF, Petersen G, Forster J, Berkhout B, Uberla K. Croup is associated with the novel coronavirus NL63. PLoS Med (2005) 2(8):e240.
• de Vries M, Deijs M, Canuti M, van Schaik BD, Faria NR, van de Garde MD, Jachimowski LC, Jebbink MF, Jakobs M, Luyf AC, Coenjaerts FE, Claas EC, Molenkamp R, Koekkoek SM, Lammens C, Leus F, Goossens H, Ieven M, Baas F, van der Hoek L. A sensitive assay for virus discovery in respiratory clinical samples. PLoS ONE. (2011) Jan 24;6(1):e16118.
• Canuti M, Buka S, Jazaeri Farsani SM, Oude Munnink BB, Jebbink MF, van Beveren NJ, de Haan L, Goldstein J, Seidman LJ, Tsuang MT, Storosum JG, van der Hoek L. Reduced maternal levels of common viruses during pregnancy predict offspring psychosis: potential role of enhanced maternal immune activity? Schizophr Res. 2015 Aug;166(1-3):248-54.
• Oude Munnink BB, Cotten M, Canuti M, Deijs M, Jebbink MF, van Hemert FJ, Phan MV, Bakker M, Jazaeri Farsani SM, Kellam P, van der Hoek L. A Novel Astrovirus-Like RNA Virus Detected in Human Stool.Virus Evol. 2016 Mar 2;2(1):vew005.
• Cotten M, Oude Munnink B, Canuti M, Deijs M, Watson SJ, Kellam P, van der Hoek L. Full genome virus detection in fecal samples using sensitive nucleic acid preparation, deep sequencing, and a novel iterative sequence classification algorithm. PLoS One. (2014) Apr 2;9(4):e93269.
• Oude Munnink BB, Canuti M, Deijs M, de Vries M, Jebbink MF, Rebers S, Molenkamp R, van Hemert FJ, Chung K, Cotten M, Snijders F, Sol CJ, van der Hoek L. Unexplained diarrhoea in HIV-1 infected individuals. BMC Infect Dis. (2014) Jan 13;14:22.
• Oude Munnink BB, Jazaeri Farsani SM, Deijs M, Jonkers J, Verhoeven JT, Ieven M, Goossens H, de Jong MD, Berkhout B, Loens K, Kellam P, Bakker M, Canuti M, Cotten M, van der Hoek L. Autologous antibody capture to enrich immunogenic viruses for viral discovery. PLoS One. 2013 Nov 4;8(11):e78454.
• Dijkman R, Jebbink MF, Gaunt E, Rossen JW, Templeton KE, Kuijpers TW, van der Hoek L. The dominance of human coronavirus OC43 and NL63 infections in infants. J Clin Virol. (2012) Feb;53(2):135-9.
• Pyrc K, Sims AC, Dijkman R, Jebbink M, Long C, Deming D, Donaldson E, Vabret A, Baric R, van der Hoek L, Pickles R. Culturing the unculturable: human coronavirus HKU1 infects, replicates, and produces progeny virions in human ciliated airway epithelial cell cultures. J Virol. (2010) Nov;84(21):11255-63.