Albert J. R. Heck

In proteomics, Heck is most renowned for his work on quantitative proteomics, interactomics, and the analysis of post-translational modification of proteins using mass spectrometry, with a focus on protein phosphorylation and protein glycosylation. This started with the introduction of the material TiO2 as a method for the targeted analysis of phosphopeptides in 2004. The methods developed by Heck have been adopted by many scientists in other fields, to study how protein expression and phosphorylation are regulated in human cells and tissues by different biological processes and disease states.

Albert Heck is closely involved in coordinating access to proteomics infrastructures in the Netherlands and in Europe. Since 2003 Heck is scientific director of the Netherlands Proteomics Centre. From 2011 to 2015 he was coordinator of PRIME-XS, and since 2019 he coordinates EPIC-XS, both collaborative projects funded by the European Union to enable access to proteomics technology for researchers throughout Europe.

Heck received numerous awards and prizes for his scientific contributions. He received The KNCV golden medal in 2001, the Descartes Huygens Award of the Republique France in 2007, the Life Science Award of the German Mass Spectrometry Society in 2010 and the UePA Pioneer Proteomics Award in 2014. In 2013, Heck was awarded the Discovery Award in Proteomic Sciences from the Human Proteome Organization. Since 2014 he is a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization. In 2014, Heck was elected a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2017, he was awarded the Spinoza Prize, the highest scientific distinction in the Netherlands for his "major contribution to the worldwide breakthrough of systematically mapping all proteins in human cells and their biological functions by means of mass spectrometry". The American Chemical Society honoured Albert Heck with the ‘Frank H. Field and Joe L. Franklin Award for Outstanding Achievements in Mass Spectrometry’ in 2015. In 2018, he received the Sir Hans Krebs Medal of the Federation of European Biochemical Societies (FEBS) and the Thomson Medal Award of the International Mass Spectrometry Society (IMSC).

Albert Heck studied chemistry at the VU University in Amsterdam, and received his PhD degree from the University of Amsterdam in 1993. After a postdoctoral period at Stanford University in the lab of Richard Zare and Sandia National Laboratories (Livermore) he became a postdoctoral fellow and later lecturer at University of Warwick. In 1998 he accepted a chair at Utrecht University as head of the Biomolecular Mass Spectrometry and Proteomics Group. His group is part of the Departments of Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences of the Faculty of Science. From 2006 until 2012 Heck was scientific director of the Bijvoet Centre for Biomolecular Research, and from 2015 to 2018 scientific director of the Utrecht Institute for Pharmaceutical Science at Utrecht University. In 2017 he received a Distinguished Faculty professorship of Utrecht University.

Albert J.R. Heck (born November 25, 1964, in Goes, Netherlands) is a Dutch scientist and professor at Utrecht University, the Netherlands in the field of mass spectrometry and proteomics. He is known for his work on technologies to study proteins in their natural environment, with the aim to understand their biological function. Albert Heck was awarded the Spinoza Prize in 2017, the highest scientific award in the Netherlands.