The Netherlands Society for Biochemistry, the predecessor of the present society, was founded on Saturday October 15, 1927 in the Laboratory for Pharmacology in Utrecht. One of the founding members was the microbiologist A.J. Kluyver, who had published a year earlier his view on the unity of biochemical reactions in living organisms in his classic publication “Die Einheit in der Biochemie”. The concept of unifying Biochemistry brought researchers from many areas together as seen in the constitution of the first council:

E. Gorter (Leiden, pediatrician)
A.A. Hymans van de Bergh (Utrecht, internal medicine)
H.G. Bungenberg de Jong (Leiden, colloid chemist)
H.J. Jordan (Utrecht, physiologist)
A.J. Kluyver (Delft, microbiologist)
W.E. Ringer (Utrecht, physiological chemist)
B. Sjollema (Utrecht, veterinary chemist)
J. Smit (Amsterdam, microbiologist)
N.L Söhngen (Wageningen, microbiologist)
N. Waterman (Amsterdam, oncologist
Th. Weevers (Amsterdam, plant physiologist)

During the first meeting the suggestion was made that the newly founded society should become an “open” section of the Netherlands Chemical Society, precursor of the present Royal Netherlands Chemical Society (KNCV), which at that time was already a flourishing and influential organisation. At the second and constituent meeting, on December 12, the council decided to follow this suggestion.

An important year in the history of the society was 1992. In that year the general council decided unanimously to add Molecular Biology to the name of the society – this because molecular biology had become an integral part of biochemistry. In this the society followed the international trends. From 1992 onwards the official name of the society is “Nederlandse Vereniging voor Biochemie en Moleculaire Biology” (NVBMB). In 2002 the society celebrated its 75th anniversary.

The NVBMB still is an open section of the KNCV today. This means that KNCV membership is not required to become a member of the NVBMB.

When the society was founded in 1927, it was decided to organize two kinds of activities:
- general meetings during which members of the society could present their work
- specialized meetings with invited speakers to highlight new developments within a particular biochemical area.

In addition, joint meetings with related societies or with foreign Biochemical Societies were recommended.This pattern of activity persisted for many years with little change. The NVBMB played a central role in promoting biochemistry in the Netherlands before and during the second World War. H.G.K. Westenbrink was the driving force for many years. He was secretary-treasurer from 1931-1937 and chairman from 1942-1946. He rejoined the council between 1957-1960. In 1947 Westenbrink founded, together with Linderström-Lang and Fromageot, the journal Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA). He also played an important role in the formation of the International Union of Biochemistry (IUB), now the International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (IUBMB).

From 1928 onwards, the NVBMB has organized 2-3 scientific meetings per year, except in 1944 and 1945, the last two years of the second World War. In general these meetings were successful and reasonably well known, not in the least because of the contributions of well-known international biochemists, such as Bernal, Bergström, Brachet, de Duve, Elford, Fischer, Freundlich, Fromageot, Keilin, Klug, Linderström-Lang, Lohman, Lynen, Meyerhof, Monod, Needman, Peters, Phillips, Ruzicka, Szent-Györgi, Waldschmidt-Leitz, Warburg and Windaus. Proceedings appeared from many of these symposia and some of these, such as “Kringprocessen in de Biochemie” (1943), were used as teaching material in biochemistry courses.

Present situation

The general meetings, which were intended as a forum for free exchange of research results, were successful for many years and were organized up to 1964. Their role in bringing together scientists in the same field was gradually taken over by other organizations, in particular (the subdivisions of) NWO (Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research). Most biochemical research groups joined either the CW (Chemische Wetenschappen = chemical science), ALW (Aard- en Levenswetenschappen = geography and life science) or ZON-MW (Zorgonderzoek Nederland – Medische Wetenschappen = medical science) working groups. Each of these working groups brings together researchers specialized in a particular area, such as proteins, nucleic acids, lipids or biomembranes. Researchers from university as well as industrial laboratories discuss their work within these working groups and the meetings of these working groups, rather than meetings organized by the NVBMB, are now the place where young biochemists present their work and start their career.

A number of researchers felt that these NWO working groups did not sufficiently cover the newly emerging fields of bioinformatics and proteomics and founded the independent working party Bioinformatics and the Netherlands Proteomic Platform. In 2000 these two workgroups joined the NVBMB. Within the NVBMB these two groups have retained their own identity and organize their own meetings.