Dr. Jan M. Ruijter trained as a medical biologist and worked in endocrinology, neurobiology, ophthalmology and embryology. In 2017 he retired from his position as principle investigator in the department of Medical Biology (Amsterdam UMC, location AMC, Amsterdam, the Netherlands) where he was heading a research group studying the relation between gene expression and the development of the heart with molecular, image analysis and 3D-reconstruction techniques.
The statistical analysis of research data resulted in the development of LinRegPCR, a program for the analysis of quantitative PCR data based on parameters derived from individual amplification curves, and Factor-qPCR, a program to remove between-plate variation in a multi-plate qPCR experiment (both available from http://LinRegPCR.nl). A survey of amplification curve analysis programs showed that LinRegPCR is among the most sensitive and reproducible methods. LinRegPCR imports raw fluorescence data, performs baseline correction and reports efficiency-corrected target quantities based on the mean PCR efficiency per target; its compatibility with Excel and RDML places the program in a pipeline between the qPCR apparatus and final statistical analysis. Jan is still involved in several advanced qPCR courses and is working on papers on PCR artefacts and efficiency-corrected data analysis. |