Dr. Gisela Slaats studied Molecular Life Sciences with a major in Biomedicine at Wageningen University (WUR). Her PhD (cum laude, faculty of medicine UU) was performed in the laboratory of Prof. Marianne Verhaar and co-supervised by Prof. Nine Knoers. During her PhD she worked as a visiting student researcher at Stanford University School of Medicine. Gisela continued her work on renal ciliopathies as a postdoc in the laboratory of Prof. Bernhard Schermer at the University Hospital Cologne (Germany). Since 2022 she works as an assistant professor in the Regenerative Medicine Center Utrecht, department of Nephrology. Here, Gisela is using human kidney organoids in fundamental and translational research about genetic kidney diseases and aims to improve treatment strategies for kidney diseases. She is co-PI in the Horizon Europe TheRaCil project (2023), which is a consortium that works on therapies for renal ciliopathies. In addition, she is a co-PI in the ORGESTRA EU funded MSCA Joint Doctoral network (2024), and she is co-chair of Moonshot 1 of the KIDNIE research consortium (2025). 

Ciliopathy Network Netherlands (CilNetNL) co-founder

Scientific advisory board “Cilia 2024 Dublin” conference

Starting Grant UMC Utrecht (2024)

Kolff+ Junior Talent grant of the Dutch Kidney Foundation (2024)

NWO Off Road grant (2023)

Fritz Thyssen Foundation grant (2020)

EMBO long-term fellowship (2016)

‘Best Thesis in Nephrology’ Dutch Kidney Foundation prize (2015)