I am interested in studying the role of inflammatory platelets in venous thromboembolism (VTE). VTE is the third leading cardiovascular cause of death and the role of platelets might be underestimated in this pathology; First only regarded as involved only in primary hemostasis, recent studies have shown that platelets can function as immune cells. In addition, they are involved in immunothrombosis, a new concept in which immunological and thrombotic processes are closely intertwined. We believe that immunothrombosis and inflammatory platelets are crucial for VTE, particularly in certain defined clinical settings such as VTE caused by (bacterial) sepsis, catheter-related thrombosis and chronic VTE sequels. We aim to study the mechanism via which inflammatory platelets mediate (experimental) thrombosis and identify novel therapeutic targets.

For my Bachelor and Master degrees in the field of Medical Biology I studied in Nijmegen (The Netherlands), where I focussed on the role of inflammation in pathophysiological processes. I obtained my PhD degree at the Leiden University (the Netherlands), where I worked on a project in which we modulated natural anticoagulation to induce unique thrombotic phenotypes in vivo. My time as a PhD candidate was followed by two postdocs: First, I was employed at the Eppendorf University Hospital (Hamburg, Germany) where I studied the mechanism of coagulation factor XII contact activation. Second, before starting at SAINBIOSE, I worked at INSERM U1176 (Le Kremlin-Bicêtre, France) on the generation of a novel mouse model for von Willebrand disease, a severe bleeding disorder.

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