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 am fascinated by the brain’s remarkable capacity to repair itself and the potential to harness this ability for regenerative therapies. My journey began during my PhD in the lab of Prof. Cobi Heijnen at UMC Utrecht, where I investigated the potential of intranasal administration of mesenchymal stem cells as a novel therapeutic approach for neonatal brain injury. This pre-clinical work paved the way for a clinical trial at UMC Utrecht, investigating intranasal MSC treatment in newborns with neonatal encephalopathies.
As a postdoctoral researcher at INSERM in Lyon, France, I continued studying neonatal brain injury, characterizing the neurogenic potential of postnatal glutamatergic progenitors. Later, at UMC Utrecht in Prof. Elly Hol’s lab, I shifted focus to neurodegenerative disease, exploring novel therapeutic targets for Parkinson’s disease.
Now, my team studies the mechanisms that help—or hinder—the human brain’s ability to regenerate. We explore how neural stem cells can produce functional neurons to restore brain function, using a combination of post-mortem human tissue, brain organoids, and Parkinson’s disease models, along with cutting-edge single-cell omics and high-resolution imaging.