Prof. Dr. Johannes Joseph van Rood (1926‐2017)

Jon was born on April 7, 1926 in Scheveningen, a town situated on the coast of the Netherlands. At the end of the Second World War, he began his medical studies at Leiden University. After finishing these, Jon was active as a ‘house doctor’, and visited many of his patients in the country areas. He considered this as one of the best medical learning experiences of his early career, as he was confronted with so many different illnesses. Jon could also tell amazing stories about touring on his motor bike in bad Dutch weather in the rural countryside. Apparently he was a poor driver, and ended up parking his motorbike at least six times in a canal. He moved temporarily to New York in 1950, and under the guidance of Dr. R.F. Loeb (Presbyterian Hospital, New York), he became intrigued by Internal Medicine. Upon returning to Leiden, Jon began his training with Prof. Dr. J. Mulder in order to specialise in the field. In 1957, he was certified as a specialist in Internal Medicine (equivalent to US board certification), and was appointed as head of the Leiden Blood Bank. To quote Jon: “The board thought that a young, inexperienced doctor could do the least harm in such an unimportant place.” Those were the days just after open-heart surgery had been introduced, and unprecedented amounts of blood were required. Jon began to organise things, recruiting large numbers of donors, and improving the supply pipeline. All of this demonstrated his talent for organisation, and the young doctor soon proved to be a highly capable manager. At its inception, the entire Blood Bank team comprised just a handful of staff members and technicians. One of them was George Eernisse, an MD, who could isolate, radio-label, and perform in vivo studies of red blood cells and platelets; the other was Aad van Leeuwen, who had a pair of golden hands and was an eminent serologist. The combination of Jon's, George's, and Aad's talents created the basis for a forceful team, ready to embark on great discoveries, as Jon was able to think well out of the box. He was at his best when trying to comprehend something in order to answer a question, and was prepared to conduct things in an unconventional manner while squeezing out the answer that would finally satisfy his curiosity. For instance, the male staff members of the Blood Bank exchanged skin grafts and platelet transfusions to study the relationship between transfusion and transplant immunity. It soon became clear that the young doctor was destined to become a zealous medical investigator, who expected of his employees the same high level of dedication and commitment, DOI: 10.1111/tan.13113