Prof. dr. Matthijs Verhage heads the Functional Genomics Department at Amsterdam UMC and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. His work focuses on the presynaptic nerve terminal. He received his PhD (cum laude) at the University of Amsterdam, and post- doctoral training in the labs of prof. D.G. Nicholls (UK), and prof. T.C. Südhof (US), who later won the Nobel prize. Verhage is author on >200 peer reviewed papers and recipient of many national and international grants/awards, including the VICI and ERC Advanced grants. He is chair of the national BRAINMODEL consortium (https://brainmodel.nl), scientific director of N=You precision medicine center (AmsterdamUMC), coordinator of the SynGO consortium (with dr. Guus Smit, https://www.syngoportal.org), and founder/chair of the European ESCO consortium (https://stxbp1eu.org) to establish clinical trials for STXBP1-related disorder, together with (inter)national STXBP1 patient families/organizations. He established several spin off companies incl. Synaptologics (Sylics) and Neurospector.