I am a PhD student at the department of Medical Biology at Amsterdam UMC (location AMC) under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Eric Reits. I obtained my BSc. in Biology at The College of Idaho (Caldwell, USA) where I got my first taste of biomedical research as I explored the effects of e-cigarettes on bone health. Afterwards, I worked as a research assistant for a couple of years at Brown University (Providence, USA) investigating the mechanism behind asymmetric cell division in sea urchin embryogenesis. I then decided to pursue an MSc. in Biomedical sciences with a focus on Cell Biology and Advanced Microscopy at the University of Amsterdam (The Netherlands). During this time, I wrote a literature review on the non-canonical functions of myeloid-cell leukemia (MCL-1) protein. I also completed two internship projects. The first project focused on the dynamics of β-catenin in WNT signaling and cell adhesion in mammary cells. I completed the second project in the group of Eric Reits where I optimized phenotypic assays for the validation of therapeutic compounds in Huntington’s disease. After that last internship, I accepted a PhD student position in the Reits group to continue research into Huntington’s disease.

Within the CureQ consortium, I am involved in WP4 where I collaborate with VectorY to investigate the potential of vectorized intracellular antibodies (intrabodies) as a therapeutic strategy for Huntington’s disease. With these intrabodies, we aim to selectively reduce mutant huntingtin protein by improving its degradation without impacting the function of wild-type huntingtin that is important for healthy cellular activity.