Imke M.E. Schuurmans

Scientific background

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I obtained my bachelor’s degree in biology and Medical Laboratory research at the HAN in Nijmegen. Afterwards I obtained my pre-master and accordingly my master’s degree in biomedical sciences at the Radboud University in Nijmegen. During my master I became fascinated by neural stem cell research, so in my second year I joined the lab of Dr. Nael Nadif Kasri (Human Genetics Department, Radboudumc). Here, I developed and characterized cerebral organoids to model neurodevelopmental disorders. During this internship, my interest for neural stem cell research increased even more and I decided to continue my scientific career within this research field. Therefore, I was very excited to be accepted as a combined PhD in the groups of Dr. Alex Garanto, Dr. Nael Nadif Kasri, Dr. Karlien Coene and Prof. Dr. Clara van Karnebeek, who offered me the opportunity to combine the two amazing research areas of genetic therapy development and neural stem cell modelling. My PhD project focusses on the generation and characterization of cellular models for two rare neurometabolic disorders (PDE and GA1) and the development of AON-based therapies to treat both diseases.

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Hobbies outside science

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Next to science, I spend most of my free time on (learning to) fixing up our 150-year old farmhouse together with my partner. I also like horse riding and jogging every now and then. Moreover, I love to spend time with family and friends (and Netflix).