Matthijs Verhage studied STXBP1/Munc18-1 ever since the initial cloning by dr. Yutaka Hata in Tom Südhof’s lab and authored 50 scientific publications on this protein/gene. He performed the first functional studies on this protein and generated the knock out mouse. Matthijs has coordinated many subsequent studies on the molecular functions of this gene/protein with labs around the world. Recently, he coordinated the functional analysis of the first series of patient mutations in vitro and established several mouse models for STXBP1 encephalopathy.