I am a neurologist and principal investigator at Radboud university medical center (Radboudumc), Nijmegen, the Netherlands. This is also the institute at which I was trained, before leaving to Queen Square, London, UK for a 1-year movement disorders fellowship. I completed my PhD in 2005 on autosomal dominant cerebellar ataxias, the most common of which are polyQ diseases.
I am founder and head of the Radboudumc expert center for rare and genetic movement disorders, appointed by the Dutch Ministry of Health and part of ERN-RND. My research team performs translational research into rare and genetic movement disorders, such as ataxia, HSP, dystonia, and rare forms of parkinsonism. I am highly motivated to bring new therapies to the clinic, and increasingly gear efforts towards trial-readiness.
For twenty years, I am or have been part of various European ataxia research consortia. I am a member of various other committees, boards and taskforces that target care, guidelines, or research within neurological movement disorders.
Within CureQ, I will lead and work within WP2 in which we use existing and generate new data on various longitudinal disease metrics of patients and carriers with SCA1, SCA3, and Huntington’s disease. As such, we will be able to provide targeted donor cells of well-phenotyped patients and carriers to the more preclinical workpackages, but can also validate the relevance of biological signals detected in cell-based experiments. At the Radboudumc site, I will be supported by PhD student Colette Reniers, we will work closely with collaborators from the other clinical units involved in CureQ.