Meet Our researchers
Our dedicated team of researchers each with their own unique skillset
Inge R. Holtman
Assistant Professor – Rosalind Franklin Junior Group LeaderStudies how genetic variation influences susceptibility to brain diseases. Founder of the Netherlands Neurogenomics Database (NND).
i.r.holtman@umcg.nl
Alejandro Marmolejo Garza
Postdoctoral FellowFocuses on brain organoid models for psychiatric disease and mitochondrial involvement in Alzheimer’s disease.
a.marmolejo.garza@umcg.nl
Shivam Kumar
Postdoctoral FellowWorks on machine learning for pathological imaging and predicting clinical traits from biomedical data.
s.kumar@umcg.nl
Nienke Mekkes
PhD StudentResearches brain disorders using cross-diagnostic approaches integrating multi-omics and clinical data.
n.j.mekkes@umcg.nl
Ruhi Soni
Research AnalystFocuses on biological signatures underlying psychiatric disorders using bioinformatics approaches.
r.soni@umcg.nl
Eric Hoekstra
Technician – BioinformaticianBuilds and maintains the NND infrastructure, computational pipelines, and data systems.
e.j.hoekstra@umcg.nl
Marysia Michalak
InternI am working on establishing a robust CRISPRi system to downregulate the POLG gene in cerebral organoids. By inducing mitochondrial dysfunction, we aim to mimic aspects of cellular aging and generate a more physiologically relevant aged phenotype in this model.
m.a.michalak@umcg.nl
Emily Farrugia
InternBenchmarking dissociation strategies for dorsal forebrain organoids to optimize single-cell resolution transcriptomics and examine how prenatal stressors alter neurodevelopment and neuropsychiatric disorder risk.
e.farrugia@umcg.nl
Sanne Jansen
InternI am working with synthetic raw-medical files representing the NBB-cohort, applying Optical Character Recognition and de-identification tools to be able to extract key neuropathological features aiming to disentangle of the heterogeneity of neuropathological disease trajectories.
s.j.jansen@umcg.nlFormer members
- Abel Koffeman
- Yanneck Klenz
- Tommaso Fortunato Asquini
- Ekaterina Dagkesamanskaia
- Maaike Brummer
- Gwenny Leistra
- Sander Bouwman
- Bart Engels
- Alyse de Boer
- Henrike Vaartstra