Bas de Laat is the general director of Synapse Research Institute since 2011. His expertise is translational research as his background is Medicine with a PhD in hemostasis and autoimmunity. Under his supervision Synapse develops new diagnostic methods in the field of hemostasis , and leads scientific studies from discovery up to market access. Furthermore he is the operational director of one of the departments within STAGO, one of the leading companies in the world in the field of coagulation. He focusses on effectively using obtained knowledge into high quality product design and is involved in medical product evaluation, validation, registration, and after-market evaluation. He is an effective initiator and conductor of clinical studies in the field of cardiovascular diseases. At the moment Bas is responsible for over 15 clinical trials within the diagnostic field ranging from single centre studies up to large multicentre studies. These studies all have either thrombosis or bleeding in common with different diseases as central theme such as oncology, diabetes, liver disease, and COPD. Furthermore, he is responsible for the development IVDR documentation, and the coordination of the validation of new diagnostic analysers for Europe, US and China. Additionally, Bas has been co-promotor and promotor (since 2022) of more than 20 PhD students and currently is promotor of over 10 PhD students.
Bas obtained his Degree in Medicine from Utrecht University in 2001 and started his PhD research project on antiphospholipid antibodies and thrombosis with Prof. Ph.G. de Groot at the University Medical Centre Utrecht. After successfully defending his thesis in 2005, he continued working at the lab of Prof. Ph.G. de Groot (UMC Utrecht). Beta2-glycoprotein I and antiphospholipid antibodies were his main subject of interest. In 2006, Bas changed institutes by becoming head “Experimental Blood Coagulation” laboratory at Sanquin Blood Supply foundation. In 2006, he obtained a personal fellowship from the Dutch Heart Foundation to investigate the role of protein beta2-glycoprotein I on bleeding and thrombosis in patients with autoimmune disorders. During his career at Sanquin Blood Supply Foundation he visited the Ruggeri Laboratories (The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA) in 2009 for one year to increase knowledge on VWF, GPIb and thrombin. In 2011, Bas received an additional grant from the Dutch Heart Foundation to investigate the interaction between VWF and fibrin under influence of flow with thrombin generation as central mechanism. Because thrombin generation had become his main subject of interest, he decided to change institutes and became the general director at Synapse Research Institute.
