Dr. Joris Deelen is an associate professor at the section of Molecular Epidemiology, Department of Biomedical Data Sciences at the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) in The Netherlands. He obtained his PhD in molecular epidemiology at the LUMC in 2014, after which he joined the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing (MPI-Age) in Germany as a postdoctoral researcher. In 2020 he was promoted to Research Group Leader at the MPI-Age and in 2025 he moved back to the LUMC to take up his current position. The work in his research group is primarily focused on the identification and functional characterization of genetic variants associated with human longevity. This work is supported by both an ERC Starting Grant and a Longevity Impetus Grant. In addition, the work in his group focuses on using epidemiological and intervention studies to identify and validate biomarkers of general health. For this they use studies set up at LUMC, such as the Leiden Longevity Study and the Growing Old Together study, but also collaborate with many (inter)national partners.
