Engy › Who's who in longevity › Jan Tytgat
At a glance
- Jan Tytgat is a Belgian toxicologist, full professor at KU Leuven and head of the Laboratory of Toxicology and Pharmacology.
- He studied pharmaceutical sciences, earned a PhD in physiology at the Leuven Faculty of Medicine and was a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard Medical School from 1990 to 1992.
- His research focuses on animal venoms, including those of scorpions, spiders, cone snails, sea anemones and jellyfish. His lab maps venom peptides and studies how they act on ion channels, with a view to possible new medicines.
- For his work on cnidarian envenomation and on drugs derived from marine organisms, he received the Dr. E. Delcroix Prize from the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ).
- He also heads a forensic toxicology laboratory on behalf of the Ministry of Justice and has more than 170 peer-reviewed papers to his name.
- In the media he is a sought-after and critical voice on drugs, poisonings and supplements.
- I follow him because he is a reminder that natural does not automatically mean safe, and that the dose makes the poison.
- Takeaway: don’t combine supplements blindly, and tell your GP or pharmacist what you take, especially if you also use medication.
Recent
- Interview Hoe kan een dodelijke injectie mislopen? Toxicoloog Jan Tytgat legt uit
- Interview Toxicoloog Jan Tytgat: ‘Vijf jongeren die stierven na het gebruik van PMA hadden na hun dood nog een rectale temperatuur van 39 graden. Die waren van binnenuit opgebrand’
- Interview Toxicoloog Jan Tytgat: ‘Er zijn meisjes van 16 die leven met een blaaskatheter omdat ze een aantal jaren ketamine hebben gebruikt’