Peter van der Sluijs studied Chemistry and Pharmacy and at the University of Groningen, where he obtained a PhD in Biochemical Pharmacology in 1987.

He received postdoctoral training in

1) the Cell Biology Program at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Heidelberg (supervisor Thomas Kreis), funded by an Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung grant, and

2) Department of Cell Biology at Yale University School of Medicine (supervisor Ira Mellman), New Haven, supported by long term fellowships of EMBO and the Leukemia Society of America.

From 1993-1998 he was senior investigator of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences and subsequently he joined the Department of Cell Biology at Utrecht University School of Medicine.

From 1998 - 2017 associate professor at Department of Cell Biology of the University Medical Center Utrecht, The Netherlands.

As of 2017, he works as associate professor in Cellular Protein Chemistry at Utrecht University.