Specialization
Stem cell biology | Neurogenesis | Neuroregeneration | Stem cell therapy | Translational research | (single-cell) transcriptomics
Focus of research
I am an Assistant Professor at the Amsterdam UMC where my team and I focus on the regenerative potential of the aged and diseased human brain.
I became fascinated with neuroregeneration during my PhD in the lab of Prof. Cobi Heijnen (UMC Utrecht) where I investigated the potential of intranasal administration of mesenchymal stem cells as a novel therapeutic strategy for neonatal brain injury. This work formed the pre-clinical phase of a clinical trial at the UMC Utrecht to assess the potential of intranasal MSC treatment in babies with neonatal encephalopathies. I subsequently joined the INSERM Institute in Lyon, France, as a postdoctoral researcher and continued working on neonatal brain injury focusing on the characterization of the neurogenic potential of a population of postnatal glutamatergic progenitors. In 2018 I joined the lab of Prof Elly Hol (UMC Utrecht) as a postdoctoral researcher and started working on identifying novel therapeutic targets for Parkinson's disease.
My team focusses on understanding the mechanisms that promote or impair regeneration of the human brain and on assessing the capacity of neural stem cells to produce functional neurons to restore brain function. This knowledge is essential for development of tailor-made stem cell-based therapeutic strategies for brain regeneration, which is another research topic of the team. We currently focus on Parkinson’s disease and use post-mortem human brain tissue, brain organoid models and PD mouse model, in combination with state-of-the-art methods, including (single-cell) omics and high-end microscopy.