Nijmegen, Gelderland, Netherlands
In my PhD project, I discover insect-specific viruses that naturally infect Dutch Culex pipiens mosquitoes and assess their effect on the transmission of important arboviruses such as West-Nile virus. The PhD project is part of the One Health consortium, aimed to prevent future outbreaks of mosquito-borne viruses in the Netherlands. The PhD position is in the Experimental virology group in the Radboud UMC in Nijmegen and is supervised by prof.dr. Ronald van Rij and dr. Pascal Miesen. Experimental work with mosquitoes is conducted at Wageningen University & Research in collaboration with Gorben Pijlman and Sander Koenraadt.
Laboratory research intern in the Herpes research group lead by prof. dr. Georges Verjans. Topic: Investigating how Varicella Zoster Virus establishes and maintains latent infection. Techniques: qPCR, cloning, transfection, RNA isolation, flow cytometry, cell culture
Laboratory research intern in the Neutrophil research group lead by prof. dr. Leo Koenderman and dr. Nienke Vrisekoop. Topic: Investigating how neutrophils and monocytes affect the motility of cancer cells. Techniques: In vitro migration assays, immune cell isolation, flow cytometry, cell culture
Bachelor thesis: literature review, 8 weeks fulltime laboratory work and written report. Topic: CD5 as a marker for self-reactivity and predictor for effector functioning of human naïve CD4+ T-cells.