![]() The Gouden Duifje, from the Janssen brothers, is the female with the golden eggs. Ameln and together with the Van Loon birds, he formed the basis of the current Koopman lineage, which includes such legendary birds as De Zitter, De Eric and De Beatrixdoffer, among others. He also accompanied him to the Janssen brothers in Arendonk, where he bought several pigeons. ![]() He also found several pigeons for him to build his own loft. Van Loon became Koopman's mentor and best friend, giving him wise advice on racing and pigeon breeding. It was his relationship with the great Louis Van Loon de Poppel that soon established Gerard as one of the top pigeon fanciers in his area. Gerard, the youngest son of the Koopman family, was drawn to pigeons and decided to race with his father after suffering an injury that took him out of football. Numerous victories were the result until 1997, which gave them their justly deserved worldwide fame. Gerard was initially crazy about football, but a meniscus injury made him decide to say goodbye to football and join the pigeon guild and, from the beginning, he teamed up with his father Cornelis. The love for animals that Gerard had inherited from his father and his ambition led him to enjoy his first successes in 1981. The combination of these two lines (Mariman and Janssen) gave birth to the birds Kneet and Vooruit. Ameln who had pure Janssen Arendonk birds in his loft. The Koopman patriarch obtained quality birds from the Mariman breeding centre and, through son Jaap, pigeons from J.H. ![]() His contacts with Belgium offered Cornelis a totally different perspective on pigeon racing. Through Jaap's commercial talent, new business possibilities were discovered. He probably inherited the commercial instinct of his parents. In 1969 he also became the importer of Mariman, a Belgian animal products firm. The egg business was started by Gerard's parents, but it was the older brother, Jaap, who was really in charge. During the war, all the birds had to be destroyed, but after the war, they created a new loft.Ĭornelis and Jansje had an egg business and in 1965 they also established a new company for agricultural products, including cereals, artificial fertilisers, potato seed and other services. They had four children, of whom Gerard was the youngest. Jansje was to become the backbone of the Koopman pigeon family. On 31 January 1938, the day Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands was born, Cornelis met his wife, Jansje, whom he married after the end of the war (27 April 1945). Initially, he concentrated his interest on a neighbour's birds, which resulted, years later, in him discovering the phenomenon of racing.Īlthough his father was not enthusiastic at first, Cornelis was given his first loft when he was 12 years old. His love for animals and especially for pigeons made him an excellent fancier. This Dutch family has more than 80 years of history in the field of homing pigeons, where the roots were laid down by the patriarch Cornelis. The Koopman lineage is one of the most famous in the world today. In the future, this model will be further characterized, and may also be used to screen drugs at a large scale, which could potentially help treat GNB5 patients.HISTORY More than 80 years of success in Dutch pigeon racing When GNB5 is defective, there is no brake on this process and the heart rate becomes extremely low during rest. More detailed experiments, in which electrical signals of individual heart cells with the mutation were measured, showed that GNB5 is very important in controlling the process that brings the heart rate down during rest. This shows that the GNB5 mutations in the patients were indeed causing their symptoms. She made a zebrafish model in which the GNB5 gene is defective, and found that these zebrafish have symptoms that are very similar to those of the patients: the zebrafish have a very slow heartbeat, problems with eye movement and problems with their muscles. She decided to study this gene because a group of patients with cardiac arrhythmias and other symptoms had a mutation in this gene. One of the genes Koopman studied is a gene called GNB5.
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