NWO Rubicon grant 2008

Dr. Nienke Vrisekoop is Associate Professor at the Center of Translational Immunology at the UMCU. Her core research interest is immune cell dynamics in health and disease.

As a PhD student at Sanquin Research with Prof Frank Miedema she studied T cell dynamics in HIV infected individuals using heavy water labeling in human volunteers for the first time in the lab. Funded by an NWO Rubicon grant she subsequently visualized the immune response in living mice using a specialized 2-photon microscope as a postdoc with Dr. Ron Germain (NIH USA). During her second postdoc with Prof. Van Rheenen (Hubrecht Institute) she employed imaging windows to longitudinally visualize cancer and immune cell dynamics in the same mouse.

In 2013 she started as an Assistant Professor at the Dept of Pulmonary Diseases in the Center of Translational Immunology of the University Medical Center Utrecht and was appointed Associate Professor in 2021. Her lab investigates neutrophil subsets in health and inflammation using cutting edge techniques such as deuterated glucose labeling in humans, visualization of human neutrophils in 3D matrices and microfluidics as well as intravital 2-photon imaging of mice. Neutrophils are the first responders of the immune system which can recognize and signal damage as well as engulf micro-organisms. Diseases her lab focuses on are physical trauma, cancer, COVID, cystic fibrosis and lung transplantation.

Nienke Vrisekoop’s lab additionally ventured in a new direction to study whether and how phagocytes are affected by microplastics. Her work on microplastics started in a TA-COAST consortium in 2014. A ZonMw Microplastics & Health breakthrough grant allowed the continuation of this research. She is currently working on the immunological health effects of microplastics in MOMENTUM and a H2020 consortium POLYRISK. In addition, she is heading the imaging core facility of the CTI.