Translational Neuroimmunology
Our group has a special interest in autoimmune disorders of the neuromuscular synapse and the unique role of IgG4 (auto)antibodies.
August 21st, 2024
It was time for our yearly group outing. We started the day with a brainstorm in a “Disney room”. We discussed novel scientific ideas without the constraints of the real world.
We continued with a creative afternoon. We poured, splattered and threw with paint and created 3 beautiful canvases that will bright up our offices. We also left our mark on the room ;-)
We closed the day with a picnic, some games in the park and a nice dinner in Woerden
June 26th, 2024
Celebrating our students! We welcomed Cornieke (who just started her internship) and said goodbye to Danique (who is finishing her internship) with a vegan burger lunch. The weather was tropical, the food was delicious and the supervisors were proud!
June 4th, 2024
Maartje will give (her first!) Keynote lecture at the Antibody Engineering & Therapeutics Europe conference next week in London. She will share our excitement about “The Peculiar Features of IgG4 MuSK Antibodies and How They Can Be Used As Therapeutics” with the audience.
April 2nd, 2024
Happy to share that Olena’s paper “Change of voltage-gated sodium channel repertoire in skeletal muscle of a MuSK myasthenia gravis mouse model” was accepted at European Journal of Neuroscience! And with that comes a special edition of cake :). Superproud of Olena and team for finishing this long and challenging project which was supported by my first ever grant princess Beatrix muscle fund.
March, 2024
The Gordon conference on antibody biology and engineering was held in Barga Italy this year. Dana and Maartje had a great time listening to some mindblowing new science methods in this field as well as learning some new insights on antibody biology that will alter text books. Did you know that IgM actually comes in different forms and clones depending on the bodily fluid it’s measured in? Or that there are mice out there that produce fully human antibodies including the variable regions? Neither did we! Aside from all that we also had a chance to share our data, make some great new connections and see the surroundings during some hikes. For all interested in this field I highly recommend the next conference in two years from now in Ventura!
January 11th, 2024
NL-NMD research symposium: Always fun to catch up on all the exciting neuromuscular research in The Netherlands and to talk to our colleagues again. Also a great opportunity to share our research. Robyn and Olena did an awesome job presenting their >2 years of work in 5 minutes.
December 12th, 2023
NeuroImmunology Christmas drinks! A time to reflect, a time to have fun and a time to play games together. Luckily the 50 bitterballs were supplied with sufficient mayonaise thanks to Olena and mocktails thanks to Oscar.
November 4th, 2023
Yet another highlight for our team this year! A joint effort to explain IgG4 predominance in IgG4-AID was just published online at Clinical Immunology. In this study we immunophenotyped the B cell compartment in dept of patients from 4 different IgG4-AIDs and compared them to 2 IgG1-3-AIDs patient groups and matched healthy donors. Main conclusion: the IgG4-predominance in IgG4-AID must be antigen driven, as these patients don’t have abnormal IgG4 memory or plasma cell numbers. Enjoy the read! This calls for a cake!
5-8 September, 2023
Maartje was invited to talk at The Antibody Society 2023. It was an inspiring conference because of very interesting lectures on novel methods to optimize antibody binding, thresholding of antibody binding or optimizing effector functions. Much food for thought. The organization and location (Vidago Palace in Portugal) was also worth the travel as you can see :)
September, 2023
On the first of September our team welcomed a new team member: Manon! We’re very happy that she’ll be working on setting up the tonsil organoid model for our lab and support our team with the day to day lab business. Unfortunately, the dog in the picture is not part of the team yet, but after seeing this picture we’re seriously considering to put an add out for a labdog as well!
August 25th, 2023
Today we celebrated our teams accomplishments with our yearly team outing. Oscar was kind enough to introduce us to his cocktail/mocktail mixing talents in the backyard of Maartje’s renovated home. After this “hard” work we had tapas and got to know night live in rural Voorschoten.
June 30, 2023
Congrats to Laurent and Yvonne for submitting their work investigating the B-cell compartment in patients with IgG4 autoimmune diseases. [Link]
April 7, 2023
Congrats to Jamie and Roy for publishing their work on agonistic a-MuSK antibodies in Scientific reports! A special nerdy cake with the manuscript figures on it was eaten to celebrate. [Link]
March 30, 2023
Today we surprised Maartje has she has been 12.5 years in service at the LUMC. Of course this had to be celebrated!
March 7, 2023
Congrats to Dr. Dana Vergoosen! Today, she successfully defended her thesis and was awarded her doctorate cum laude. We’re very proud of her achievement and glad we could celebrate this with her!
February, 2023
The MuSK agonist molecule we’re co-developing with Argenx has been dosed in the first healthy donor! [Link]
