I am a pediatric immunologist and a physician scientist in the field of pediatric blood and bone marrow transplantation. We transplant children with a range of malignant and non-malignant diseases at the pediatric stem cell transplant ward at the Princes Maxima Center, each disease with their own challenge. Even with these therapies becoming safer over the years, there remains significant room for safer and less toxic transplant: to improve both effectivity and decrease toxicity of these in essence curative therapies. I am leading the BMT clinical trials within the early clinical trial unit of the Maxima and together with Stefan Nierkens we are the current directors of the M4C Transplantation and immunotherapy. I maintain an extensive HSCT biobank with the UMCU adult HCT department that allows for the biomarker and immune cell recovery studies in transplant patients, to related these to foavourable outcomes and the occurrence of specific complications. My experimental GVHD research line in close collaboration with reseachers at the Regenerative Medicine Center of the UMC Utrecht (Coffer& Ped gastro lab) focuses on tissue damage as a trigger of immune responses using the human 3D intestinal organoid model.
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