Femke de Vrij

Using hiP­SCs to mod­el schiz­o­phre­nia and relat­ed neu­ropsy­chi­atric disorders

Abstract

Recent devel­op­ments in human induced pluripo­tent stem cell (hiP­SC) tech­nol­o­gy offer the unique oppor­tu­ni­ty to imple­ment lin­eage-spe­cif­ic human cel­lu­lar mod­els suit­able for uncov­er­ing dis­ease-rel­e­vant biol­o­gy and facil­i­tate drug devel­op­ment. We have estab­lished a vari­ety of hiP­SC mod­els for obtain­ing defined brain cell types to study the under­ly­ing mech­a­nisms of psy­chi­atric and neu­rode­vel­op­men­tal disorders. 

Com­par­i­son of con­trol and dis­eased human brain cells and 3D organoids allows us to study and manip­u­late human neu­ro­bi­o­log­i­cal mech­a­nisms, focus­ing on genet­ic can­di­date vari­ants for neu­ropsy­chi­atric dis­or­ders, such as schizophrenia.

Biog­ra­phy

Femke de Vrij is a neu­ro­bi­ol­o­gist with a main focus on cel­lu­lar dis­ease mod­els to study the mol­e­c­u­lar and cel­lu­lar mech­a­nisms that under­ly psy­chi­atric and neu­rode­vel­op­men­tal disorders.

She obtained her PhD at the Nether­lands Insti­tute for Neu­ro­science in Ams­ter­dam study­ing the mol­e­c­u­lar mech­a­nisms of Alzheimer’s dis­ease, con­tin­ued by post­doc­tor­al work at Eras­mus MC Rot­ter­dam on Frag­ile X Syndrome.

Since 2010, she has been work­ing with Steven Kush­n­er in the depart­ment of Psy­chi­a­try of Eras­mus MC, where she is now lead­ing a research group as Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor apply­ing induced pluripo­tent stem cell mod­el­ing of brain diseases.