Arnold Driessen obtained his PhD (cum laude degree in 1987) with Prof. W. Konings at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands where he developed a generic method for the in vitro energization of membranes derived from fermentative bacteria. This technical advance allows detailed studies on transport processes in membranes of fermentative and strictly anaerobic bacteria, as well as in plasma membranes of yeast, plants, and even mammalian cells. He then went for a Postdoctoral stay at UCLA, USA in the group of Prof. W. Wickner (1989-1990) where he reconstituted as the first, the bacterial protein translocation system with purified components thereby obtaining detailed insights in the mechanism and energetics of protein transport. This work defined the minimal set of components required for protein translocation and the identification of the translocase, a complex of a peripheral membrane bound motor protein SecA and the membrane-embedded protein-conducting channel SecYEG. The work belongs to one of the mostly cited papers in the field and has been leading for later discoveries on the translocon in the mammalian endoplasmic reticulum membrane. He then returned to the University of Groningen where he established a group that studies various aspects of membrane biology, transport and protein translocation. Since 2002, Driessen is full Professor at the University of Groningen. His research has a strong multidisciplinary character including single molecule physics, synthetic-organic chemistry, and structural biology. Driessen has published more than 440 manuscript in peer-reviewed journals with a high citation record (>24,000) and a very high h-factor (80). He holds 11 patents. Driessen is frequently plenary speaker at the international Gordon, FEBS and EMBO conference, and organized several of these conferences. In 1988, Prof. Driessen obtained the Kluyver Award of the Dutch Society of Microbiology, and in 1993, he was awarded the Anniversary Price of the Society for Biological Chemistry Federation of the European Biochemical societies (FEBS). Driessen has been scientific director of the Groningen Biomolecular Sciences and Biotechnology Institute (GBB) at the University of Groningen, and was member of the board of Life Sciences of the Netherlands Organization of Fundamental Research (NWO). He is a member of the Netherlands Academy of Sciences and Arts (KNAW), flagship leader in the public-private research programme BE-BASIC, and scientific advisory board member of various institutes and organizations.
