Dr. Marije Niemeijer is Assistant Professor at the Drug Discovery & Safety division. She received her Masters degree cum laude in Bio-pharmaceutical Sciences with the specialization Toxicology at Leiden University. Thereafter, she did her PhD at the department of Toxicology of LACDR at Leiden University. Here, she studied the regulation of ER stress signalling upon chemical exposure by combining siRNA screening, high-content imaging and transcriptomic approaches. As a post-doctoral researcher, she focused on the application of 3D liver models for toxicity testing. Now as assistant professor, she aims to dissect molecular mechanisms of drug action in both the context of drug efficacy as well as toxicity using advanced in vitro test systems that are fit for this purpose. To improve the prediction of adverse drug reactions, it is key to identify the molecular-initiation-event and understand the mechanism leading to adverse events. Since a single test system cannot predict all, it is essential to identify a drug safety testing strategy using a specific battery of test systems both encompassing more simple high-throughput and advanced systems. Through omics approaches, affected genes or networks for different areas within the chemical space or for specific pathologies can be identified and used as reporter genes or as drug targets. To further refine chemical risk assessment, she aims to characterize the inter-individual variability in the activation of these critical gene networks upon chemical exposure.

More information about Marije Niemeijer

Profile

Projects:

• RISK-HUNT3R (RISK assessment of chemicals integrating HUman centric Next generation Testing strategies promoting the 3Rs)
• PARC (Partnership for the Assessment of Risks from Chemicals)
• TD-TRAQ (Characterisation of human variability in toxicodynamics: towards the development of quantitative Adverse Outcome Pathways, qAOPs)
• TXG-MAP (Translational quantitative Toxicogenomics mechanism-based AOPmapping for human NAM-based risk assessment)

Courses:

• BSc BFW2 Toxicologie
• BSc BFW2 practicum Cellulair Biochemie

Publications