User:Rhurk/sandbox

Dr. Robert van den Hurk (1946) is a retired Dutch Biologist. In the Netherlands, he was born in a village called Zuilen, which currently is part of Utrecht, a city in the center of the country. From 1964 to 1970, he studied Biology at the Utrecht University, and got his doctor's degree in 1975 after the defense of his thesis entitled Morphological and functional aspects of the testis of the black molly (Mollienisia latipinna). Until 1988, he was appointed as (assistent) Professor at the Utrecht University (Faculty of Biology, Department of Zoology). Thereafter, he worked until 2008 as (associate) Professor at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine (Department of Anatomy and Physiology, later termed the Department of Pathobiology) from the Utrecht University.

His teaching program comprised anatomical, histological, cell-biological and physiological aspects of the reproductive system, the (central) nervous system, the digestive system, the excretory system, the locomotion apparatus and vertebrate embryo development, and courses on the comparative anatomy of vertebrate skulls, immunohistochemistry and vertebrate sex pheromones.

Until 1988, his research program comprised the endocrine and exocrine regulation of teleost reporduction, with special focus on annual gonadal cycles, gonadal sex differentiation and inraspecific communication through sex pheromones. From 1988 up to and including 2007, his research was focused on the regulation of mammalian (i.e., rat, bovine, porcine, caprine, monkey and human) ovarian follicle development and the cryopreservation of early-staged (caprine) follicles. He is (co)author of ± 250 papers, which appeared in peer-reviewed scientific journals or scientific books.

After his retirement in December 2007, he continued scientific research through a collaboration with several Brazilian scientists, with whom he up to now investigates the in-vitro regulation of ruminant and primate ovarian follicle development. His ongoing interest in sex pheromones and their significance for the reproduction of vertebrates brought him to write two books, published by the Pheromone Information Centre (Zeist, The Netherlands), which he founded in 2007. The first book was published in 2007 and the other one in 2011. The latter book is entitled Intraspecific chemical communication in vertebrates with special attention to sex pheromones (NUR-code:922. ISBN:978-90-77713-78-5; 191 pp.). It is an updated and improved edition from the first book entitled Intraspecific chemical communication in vertebrates with special attention to its role in reproduction (ISBN: 978-90-393-4500-9; 171 pp.).

In 2010 he completed a trilogy Verhalen van een Hollandse Cowboy (Engl.: Stories of a Dutch cowboy), containing autobiographic stories, while in 2012 a trilogy about his family tree Stamboom Van den Hurk (Engl.: Family tree Van den Hurk) was completed. These six books (each ± 200 pp.) are all written in Dutch.