Cees van Kooten (1963) is Professor in Experimental Nephrology & Transplant Immunology at the Leiden University Medical Center. He is trained as an immunologist and performed his PhD research at the Bloodbank Sanquin (Amsterdam, the Netherlands). After fellowships at the department of Clinical Immunology (Göteborg, Sweden) and the Immunological Research Institute of Schering Plough (Dardilly, France), in 1995 he joined the department of Nephrology in Leiden. Since 2004 he is heading the immunological research laboratory of the department of Nephrology-Internal Medicine. In the past decade his research has been focussing on various aspects of innate immunity in transplant rejection and renal inflammation, including macrophages and dendritic cells and the role of the complement system. In the past years he has been actively involved in several national and European collaborative project and currently he is coordinating a consortium supported by the Dutch Kidney Foundation. He has been board member and treasurer of the Dutch Society for Immunology and member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Dutch Kidney Foundation. Next to his research activities, he is actively involved in teaching programs at the University Leiden, ranging from bachelor courses in Medicine and Biomedical Sciences till post-graduate PhD education. He is chairman of the Exam Committee of the Master Biomedical Sciences.