Thijn Brummelkamp is currently a fellow at the Whitehead Institute

Whitehead Institute

Founded in 1982, the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research is a non-profit research and teaching institution located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA....

 for Biomedical research. He joined the Whitehead Institute in 2004.

He received his MS in Biology at the Free University

Free University

Free University may refer to any of the following universities:* Université Libre de Bruxelles, located in Brussels, Belgium* Vrije Universiteit Brussel, located in Brussels, Belgium* Free University of Berlin, located in Berlin, Germany...

 in Amsterdam

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

, Following which, he went on to the Netherlands Cancer Institute for his graduate research and received his PhD cum laude from Utrecht University

Utrecht University

Utrecht University is a university in Utrecht, Netherlands. It is one of the oldest universities in the Netherlands and one of the largest in Europe. Established March 26, 1636, it had an enrollment of 29,082 students in 2008, and employed 8,614 faculty and staff, 570 of which are full professors....

 in the year 2003.

Some of his achievements include the following:

• Antonie van Leeuwenhoek Award in the year 2003
• NVBMB (Dutch association for biochemistry and molecular biology) Award in 2004
• He was also chosen as one of the world's 35 Top Young Innovators by MIT's Technology Review magazine TR35
  TR35
  The TR35 is an annual list published by MIT Technology Review magazine, naming the world's top 35 innovators under the age of 35.Some of the most famous winners of the award include Larry Page and Sergey Brin , Linus Torvalds , Jerry Yang , Jonathan Ive , Mark Zuckerberg...
  
   in the year 2005.
• Kimmel Scholar Award http://www.kimmel.org/About41.html in 2006.
• Thijn Brummelkamp exploited the process called RNA intereference(RNAi
  RNAI
  RNAI is a non-coding RNA that is an antisense repressor of the replication of some E. coli plasmids, including ColE1. Plasmid replication is usually initiated by RNAII, which acts as a primer by binding to its template DNA. The complementary RNAI binds RNAII prohibiting it from its initiation role...
  
  ) to selectively study the function of gene
  Gene
  A gene is a molecular unit of heredity of a living organism. It is a name given to some stretches of DNA and RNA that code for a type of protein or for an RNA chain that has a function in the organism. Living beings depend on genes, as they specify all proteins and functional RNA chains...
  
  s. He and his colleagues for the first time ever, described the concept of 'stable interference' which is nowadays widely used to manipulate gene function in mammalian cells
  Cell (biology)
  The cell is the basic structural and functional unit of all known living organisms. It is the smallest unit of life that is classified as a living thing, and is often called the building block of life. The Alberts text discusses how the "cellular building blocks" move to shape developing embryos....
  
  .
• He has also performed several RNAi screens to better understand gene function. Through these RNAi screens, he also discovered and assigned function to the familial cylindromatosis gene which shed some light on the cause of a very poorly characterized form of hereditary skin cancer
  Cancer
  Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
  
  .