Are you intrigued by the brain and its complexity, as well as by new technologies and the amazing developments in biotechnology? Then my research group may be for you. My team and I are at the forefront of biotechnology and molecular biology, aiming to treat disorders of the human brain. Our main focus is on developing advanced therapeutical medical products (ATMPs), such as cell and gene therapy for Parkinson's disease. We are also working to treat one of the most devastating disorders of the human brain: glioblastomas, or brain tumors. The team combines in silico modeling using advanced machine learning and AI with molecular biology to tailor synthetic vectors to accurately target the cells that need treatment. This will enable us to find treatments and, in the long term, to develop cures for very complex disorders.

To ensure that the treatments we develop are feasible to bring to the clinic, we are using human model systems to develop and validate our new therapies. These include stem cell-based organoids, 3D organoids grown in vitro derived from patient tumors, as well as primary tumors from patients. By combining these cell systems with spatial sequencing, we can map and model exactly where the new viruses go and how they act in the human brain.

About me as an individual

I see myself as both a researcher and an inventor. I love to invent new tools and come up with new ideas that will give us completely new possibilities, making things possible that were previously seen as nearly impossible. We take available techniques and change them all the time to achieve something completely new. In my research group, we work very closely together. Everyone is part of the team and has close proximity to me. I have an open-door policy where we meet every day and work closely on projects. I'm driven by curiosity and will never stop wanting to learn new things. I have a passion for medicine, molecular biology, mathematics, machine learning, and the computation of large data. I'm a visual person who works a lot with pictures and how we can interpret them to learn the underlying biology. We depend on what's called computer vision to perform our spatial sequencing and to interpret how our new viruses work. We build new instruments and new microscopes as well. So, in my research group, there's space for all kinds of researchers. Medical doctors, biologists, and engineers are all very welcome.

Our research always starts with a medical need—identifying patient needs and areas where there is an unmet medical need. We work together with clinicians and translational researchers to ensure that everything we develop can reach the clinic as soon as possible.

I am a strong proponent of entrepreneurship, and I am convinced that parallel development within biotech companies, along with collaboration with the pharmaceutical industry, can ensure that our treatments reach the clinic much quicker. I have founded four biotech companies myself, and my PhD students and postdocs have founded their own companies, all with the purpose of bringing new therapies closer to the clinic.