Jan M. van Ree studied pharmacy and medicine at the Utrecht University. He joined the Rudolf Magnus Institute of Pharmacology in 1969, and specialized in pharmacology. In 1975 he defended his thesis on the topic "Self-administering behaviour of drugs in rats". He was appointed as professor of Psychopharmacology in 1987. Since 2001 he is director of the Rudolf Magnus Institute of Neuroscience of the University Medical Center Utrecht and the Utrecht University, heading the research in neuroscience, neurosurgery, neurology, pharmacology and psychiatry in Utrecht.

Besides research, Van Ree was involved in a lot of other activities. To mention a few: organizing congresses in the field of (psycho)pharmacology in the Netherlands and Europe, member of the Netherlands Medicines Evaluation Board, founder of the Netherlands Brain Foundation and Netherlands Decade of the Brain, chair of the Heroin Project and editor-in-chief of European Neuropsychopharmacology.