Specialization
Adult stem cell biology | Neuroregeneration | Translational research |
(single-cell) transcriptomics
Focus of research
I am an Assistant Professor, currently establishing my own research line at the Amsterdam UMC.
I became fascinated in 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 that is currently being run at the UMC Utrecht to assess the potential of intranasal MSC treatment in babies with neonatal encephalopathies. I then joined the INSERM Institute in Lyon, France, as a postdoctoral researcher where I continued working on neonatal brain injury and characterized the neurogenic potential of a population of postnatal glutamatergic progenitors and later in 2018 I worked in the lab of Prof Elly Hol (UMC Utrecht) as a postdoctoral researcher where I started to work on identifying novel therapeutic targets for Parkinson's disease.
Research in my team focusses on understanding the mechanisms that promote or impair regeneration of the human brain and assessing the capacity of neural stem cells to produce functional neurons to restore brain function. This knowledge will help in the development of tailor-made therapeutic strategies for brain regeneration. To this end we focus on Parkinson’s disease and use post-mortem human brain tissue, brain organoid models and PD mouse model. We combine state-of-the-art methods, including (single-cell) omics and high-end microscopy.