In Vitro Toxicology Research Group (ATX)

In Vitro Toxicology Research Group (ATX)

Meet the team

Nynke I. Kramer, PhD

N.I.Kramer@uu.nl

Nynke Kramer is assistant professor in toxicology and heads the In Vitro Toxicology group (ATX). Her research focusses on enhancing the uptake of in vitro models in toxicological risk assessment by developing models extrapolating effect concentrations obtained from in vitro cell assays to toxic doses relevant to humans and animals. She teaches toxicokinetics and (eco)toxicological risk assessment at undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate level across faculties. Her teaching and research neatly integrate the skills she acquired during her PhD in Toxicology at Utrecht University, her MSc in Environmental Change and Management at Oxford University, and her BSc in Life Sciences at University College Utrecht.

Nynke is involved in all projects listed on this webpage.

https://www.uu.nl/staff/NIKramer, www.linkedin.com/in/kramernynke

Emma E.J. Kasteel, MSc

e.kasteel@uu.nl

Emma Kasteel is a PhD student in the ATX group. She is involved in the EFSA TK-TD MoHV project (link) and started her PhD in January 2017. She completed her Bachelor’s and Master’s both at the Free University of Amsterdam (VU) in Pharmaceutical Sciences and Drug Discovery and Safety, with a focus on toxicology. After finishing her internship at the Neurotoxicology group at IRAS, she started her PhD. Her research involves human variability in toxicology, with a specific focus on the variability in toxicodynamics using different in vitro methods. Her research is part of the EFSA MoHV project.

https://www.uu.nl/staff/EEJkasteel1, https://nl.linkedin.com/in/emma-kasteel-37180a83

Susana Proença, MSc

S.proenca@uu.nl

Susana did her Bachelor in Molecular and Cellular Biology and Master in Biopharmaceutical Sciences in Lisbon, Portugal. Her Master thesis was on 3D breast cancer models to study inhibitors of metastization. After, she worked 10 months in Joint Research Center of the EU, first in in vitro biokinetics simulations with the VCBA model and then on REACH dossiers data analysis for ecotoxicity. She started the PhD in the group in September 2017 and she is focused on the distribution of chemicals in in vivo and in vitro models. She is involved in the in3 MSCA-ITN, studying the distribution of the chosen xenobiotics in the several iPSC cultures and in the extrapolation to in vivo exposure. She intends to clear if organ specific toxicity is due to organ specific dynamics or kinetics. She is also involved in the CosEU IV-Kin, where she developed and works with several HepaRG cultures to study the distribution of xenobiotics in the different HepaRG vitro systems and its impact in clearance assays.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/susana-proen%C3%A7a-70260671/

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Susana_Proenca

Valentin De Gussem, MSc

V.DeGussem@uu.nl

Valentin is a PhD candidate as of 2018 at IRAS, working on EMERCHE project, in  collaboration with the Copernicus Institute (Geosciences Faculty of UU) and KWR (Dutch research institute of water cycle). He got his Bachelor degree in biomedical sciences and Master degree in biomedical sciences, specialising in toxicology at the Catholic University of Louvain in Brussels (Belgium). He also got a Master degree in Ecotoxicology at the University of Bordeaux (France).  He has expertise in toxicology and ecotoxicology, cell culture, cellular toxicity tests, ELISA, FACS and embryo zebrafish assay (EASZY assay). His research focuses on the implementation of a battery of bioassays for water quality assessment in order to evaluate the risk for human health of chemicals of emerging concern in the water cycle. He also focuses on effect-based risk assessment by deriving trigger values for the selected bioassays applying toxicokinetics modelling in order to define risk thresholds.

www.uu.nl/staff/VRJdeGussem

https://nl.linkedin.com/in/valentin-de-gussem-aa277ba5

 

The Master students

Joris van der Lugt, BSc

j.j.vanderlugt@students.uu.nl

My name is Joris van der Lugt I am a Master student following the Toxicology and Environmental Health master. I am working on a research project in which I script reverse dosimetry PBPK models for ‘difficult-to-test’ chemicals to assess the extent to which alternative in vitro dosing techniques improve quantitative in vitro in vivo extrapolations (QIVIVE) of chemicals that evaporate, degrade or non-specifically bind to well plate plastic and medium constituents in vitro. My bachelor was biology here at university Utrecht. During my bachelor I was primarily focused on molecular biology. This will be my major internship project. I have already completed my minor internship at TNO on the toxicology of firearm emissions. I will be doing my internship part time for 16 hours a week. The remaining time will be spent teaching biology at the Dutch Defense CBRN center in Vught. Apart from this teaching job and internship I enjoy hiking and can often be found at the Survivalbaan at USSV Simius Hircus.

Winnie Henderson, BSc

w.henderson@uu.nl

I am Winnie Henderson, contrary to what my name might suggest, I am very Dutch. I am a master student from the Toxicology and Environmental health programme and I’ll be working with Susana. During my major project I will focus on amiodarone and HBCD, for which I will -hopefully- develop an SPME method to determine binding affinities.

My bachelor’s in Chemistry, where I followed the Molecular Life Sciences track and mainly focussed on organic and analytical chemistry, with some occasional cell biology and physiology added. For my bachelor thesis I worked on synthetic lipid bilayers (SMALPs), preparing them in a way external proteins would be able to bind to them.

When I’m not working on the project (but probably also inbetween measurements) you can find me crotcheting, fangirling over house plants or writing, which I also do for DUB (our University’s online paper) and other magazines. Recently, I joined the Journal of Trial and Error, where I will publish blogs and Layman’s summaries soon.

Nick van Sabben, BSc

n.vansabben@uu.nl

Nick is a student of the Master’s programme ‘Toxicology and Environmental Health’ at the University of Utrecht. He previously did a bachelor internship in the ETX group of IRAS. Where he worked with Jorke Kamstra on the Goliath project, testing the possibility of quantifying adipogenesis in 3T3-L1 cells with flow cytometry.

He is currently doing his 9 month internship in the ATX group working together with Susana Proença. He works with different HepaRG cell models testing the distribution of HBCD and the effects of this xenobiotic on the intrinsic clearance of thyroid hormone.

 

The Technicians

Sandra Nijmeijer, BSc

S.M.Nijmeijer@uu.nl

Sandra Nijmeijer is a research-technician and joined ATX in the summer of 2018. However, she already works at IRAS for over 15 years and gained a lot of experience. She is the person to ask when you have questions about cell culturing, PCR, or any other assay that involves cells. She manages the cell culture labs and helps PhD and MSc students with setting-up their laboratory experiments.

https://www.uu.nl/medewerkers/SMNijmeijer

Theo Sinnige, BSc

T.Sinnige@uu.nl

Theo Sinnige is a research technician in analytical chemistry, with a special focus on chromatography (high pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC-(MS)) and gas chromatography (GC-(MS))). He manages the analytical laboratory and provides PhD and MSc students with analytical advice.

https://www.uu.nl/medewerkers/TLSinnige

Previous Group Members

 

 

Name Previous occupation in the ATX group Current  position
Gulsah Dogruer Invited PhD candidate working on assessing the impact of chemical exposure on the health of coastal marine wildlife through toxicokinetics (TK) and toxicodynamics modelling Environmental Scientist in Marine Research-Wageningen Marine Research
Iris Schaap Research Assistant working on in vitro kinetics, both through in vitro experiments and in silico modelling Junior Researcher Risk and Hazard Assessment of Waste Streams at Wageningen University & Research
Anne Zwartsen Postdoctoral Researcher working on QIVIVE modelling of neurotox substances Toxicologist at KWR Water Research Institute
Femke Taverne PhD candidate working on PBK modelling of livestock animals

Postdoctoral Researcher working on PBPK modelling (human) and in vitro toxicological studies regarding nephrotoxicity of antimicrobial and antiviral compounds

 Postdoctoral Researcher at Wageningen University & Research
Belinda Timmermans Master student working with Emma Kasteel on monitoring human variability in toxicokinetics and toxicodynamics using in vitro models and adverse outcome pathways (AOPs) Minor internship in RIVM