Bos was born in
Vlaardingen on 16 June 1950. He studied biochemistry at the
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam between 1969 and 1975. In 1980 Bos obtained his title of
Doctor at the
University of Amsterdam under
Piet Borst, with a thesis titled: "Structural analysis of yeast mitochondrial DNA. The region of the 21S ribosomal RNA gene". In 1986 Bos became a lector at Leiden University. In 1991 he was appointed professor of physiological chemistry at Utrecht University. In 2015 Dutch newspaper
de Volkskrant announced that Bos was the Dutch researcher who obtained most funds in the Netherlands during the previous ten years, obtaining over 31 million euro. ==Honours and distinctions==