In my lab, we focus on the molecular control of the development of red blood cells (RBCs). Understanding how specific genes are 'shut off' in mature RBCs is an important goal, since reactivation of these genes could ameliorate the symptoms of beta-thalassemia and sickle cell disease. In TRACER we will investigate what is needed for induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) to develop into blood stem cells (BSCs) and after that, into mature RBCs. We will derive iPSC lines from patients and either repair or reactivate the genes through gene editing. The aim is to develop genetically corrected patient-specific BSCs for bone marrow transplantation (cure), and universally safe RBCs for blood transfusions (medication).

I am a philosopher and ethicist at the Harvard Wyss Institute for Biologically inspired Engineering, and Lecturer at Harvard Medical School. I conduct my philosophical and ethical work as a full-time ethicist on the workfloor of the lab and have developed the model of ‘Collaborative Ethics’. Within TRACER, together with Eva-Maria Merz, I co-lead the work package on ethical, legal and societal implications of advanced cellular therapies for patients, their families, caregivers, policymakers and the general public. With the help of the 4A-model, we will write scenarios for responsible development and possible implementation of iPSC-based therapies.

As Principal Investigator at Sanquin, my expertise lies in stem cell biology, with a primary focus on induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). In my research, I delve into the intricacies of disease mechanisms and explore the potential of iPSCs in medical treatments. I work closely together with Marieke von Lindern. Within TRACER, my passion is unraveling the mysteries of early blood development and harnessing iPSCs to create certain types of blood products. I oversee the cultivated blood and cultivated blood stem cell lines, with a goal to revolutionize large-scale production. Additionally, I'm actively involved in exploring genetic engineering techniques for bone marrow transplantation.

I am an associate professor at the Department of Hematology at the A-UMC and and a member of the TRACER research team at Sanquin as Head of Hematopoiesis. My expertise lies in molecular biology, with a focus on understanding the development of blood cells. I investigate the factors that influence the development process, using various techniques such as cell analysis and laboratory cell growth. I work closely together with Emile van den Akker. Beyond my research, I actively participate in initiatives supporting cancer research. My dedication is to advance scientific knowledge and contribute to finding improved treatments for diseases.

I am a social scientist with a background in family studies and sociology. I am currently head of the research line Donor Behaviour at Sanquin Research and Professor of Donor Behavior at the Sociology department of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. I combine my theoretical and applied expertise within the topic of donor behaviour and social inequality in access to health care. Within the TRACER project, together with Jeantine Lunshof, I co-lead the work package on ethical, legal and societal implications of advanced cellular therapies for patients, their families, caregivers, policymakers and the general public.

I am currently the Director of the Division of Research at Sanquin Blood Supply, and professor of Molecular Stem Cell Biology at the AmsterdamUMC. At Sanquin, an important research goal is to culture blood cells that can be used for therapeutic purposes outside the body. Within TRACER, our research group aims to generate blood-forming stem cells from induced pluripotent stem cells. These blood-forming stem cells may one day be used for transplantation in patients whose own blood production is compromised.

After my medical training as a pediatric hematologist, I did my PhD project in hematopoietic stem cell biology, studying myeloid lineage development in health and disease. In the past five years I have dedicated my research on inherited bone marrow failure syndromes with a special interest in Diamond-Blackfan Anemia Syndrome (DBAS), characterized by severe hypoplastic anemia, with very limited treatment options. In TRACER, we generate DBAS-iPSC lines as novel disease models to study disease biology, genotype-phenotype correlations, and novel treatment alternatives, including the potential of genetically corrected iPSC derived cultured red blood cells (RBC) or hematopoietic stem cells (HSC).

Whether we’re considering stem cell production or industrial production of enzymes, the application of bioprocesses requires translation from the lab to a larger-scale production environment. There’s no guarantee that a successful lab process works well on a larger scale, because the conditions that cells experience differ between lab and production reactor. In my research group, we use computer models to investigate the conditions that cells experience, how cells interact with their environment, and how different conditions in different reactors affect production performance. In TRACER we apply these computer models to study how stem cells can be effectively produced in bioreactors, in quantities that are sufficient for treatments.

I am an assistant professor at the Delft University of Technology and I lead a research group on data-driven bioprocess development. Within the TRACER consortium I am responsible for the transfer of the blood stem cells (BSC) production protocol from a shake flask into a controlled lab-scale bioreactor together with my other colleagues from the Delft University of Technology. The goal is to obtain a scalable process for future production efforts. My specific role is the development of a laboratory protocol that allows us to complete the required differentiation and media refreshment steps in a single vessel while maintaining the quality of the final product.

I am an Associate Professor of Stem Cell Biology at the MRC Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Oxford. My lab focuses on blood stem cells and developing new approaches to grow these stem cells outside of the body. As a collaborator in the TRACER consortium, I am supporting TRACER’s efforts to develop new protocols to generate blood stem cells from pluripotent stem cells.

I am a professor of Developmental Hematopoiesis at University of Oxford and I also lead a research group within TRACER. It remains challenging to generate blood stem cells for therapy. Blood stem cells are born during embryonic development and my group aims to learn from the embryo how they are made. We focus on the cellular pathways and gene regulatory networks that underlie the birth of blood stem cells and will contribute new knowledge to TRACER for the development of blood stem cell therapies for regenerative medicine.

As stem cell biologist my main expertise are focusing on the use of a specific stem cell type, called induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). With the use of iPSCs we conduct fundamental research, understanding disease mechanism in a dish, but it also provides an immortal cell source to generate cellular products for certain medical treatments. My main interest within the TRACER project is to study early blood development and to make red blood cells and blood products readily available to all patients in need, with the use of iPSCs. I am keen to further apply iPSC research for the benefit of patients as well as to supply powerful iPSC tools for research and development.

I am a stem cell biologist and a junior Group Leader at Sanquin. In TRACER our team will not focus directly on red blood cell biology nor different kinds of anemias angle, but on blood stem cells, which are the cells responsible for red blood cell production.

Our aim is to gain a better understanding on how to properly correct different genetic defects which cause anemia at the stem cell level, so patients can be cured. We are also working on discovering next-generation stem cell therapies to overcome current limitations in bone marrow transplantation.

As a researcher with a specialty in cell biology I work in the lab of Sanquin and at the University Medical Center of Utrecht. I primarily research various cells of DBAS patients to find out more about the disease. This way, we can discover new ways to recognize and possibly treat it.

 I am currently a postdoctoral scientist in the lab of Prof. Marella De Bruijn (who is also a principal investigator in this consortium) at the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine (University of Oxford). Here I have been working

on understanding the early events that lead to the development of the hematopoietic system. If we know better how this system develops and works, we might be able to 'push' the iPSCs to develop towards bone marrow material in a quicker way.

In TRACER we aim to produce blood stem cells and red blood cells from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) with the help of bioreactors. Bioreactors enable us to control the temperature, maintain pH, and ensure sufficient gas supply and nutrients, creating the best environment for each type of cell. It is inspiring to work with devices that are so valuable in studying how cells can expand and differentiate outside of a body. As a cultivation specialist at Getinge I am focused on the cell performance in the bioreactor. I train bioreactor operators and help them to optimize their process.

I work at Getinge in the bioprocessing division. In the TRACER consortium I work with scientists to enable novel therapies for hereditary blood diseases. Due to the novel nature of the therapies, the tools and equipment required currently do not exist. We add our knowlegde about bioprocessing and cell cultivation systems to the TRACER project. This enables us to produce the therapy in a safe and reliable way.

I am part of the Stem Cell Biology group at Sanquin and our research focuses on understanding the identity and development of blood stem cells. For this, we will try to grow and expand blood stem cells from induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (iPSCs). The first step in this process is to let the iPSCs grow into a 3D structure, which we call a hematopoietic organoid (a blood-forming organ-like structure). We are interested in understanding how the organoid works and prove the presence of blood stem cells in these structures. From there, we can develop further steps to cultivating blood stem cells for transplantation.

BIO

BIO

As a PhD student I am involved in the TRACER consortium for a four-year project. The focus of this project is mainly on investigating iPSCs and how they can be cultured into different (blood)cells. Through genome engineering with CRISPR-Cas9 system, I am making reporter cell lines that will help shed light on this culturing process. My current efforts are focused on one of TRACERS goal: attempting to culture blood stem cells from iPSCs.

During my PhD project, I will try to gain insights into where we stand in the generation of hematopoietic stem cells from in vitro models. In order to do so, I will focus on models that mimic the in vivo production of blood cells. This is done by the generation of hematopoietic 3D organoids. What happens inside these organoids and which cell types are located within these structures, remains a black box for now, but we aim to unravel what kind of blood-producing cells are present inside these 3D structures within the coming years.

As a social scientist, my aim is to better understand people and to translate their perspectives, their motives and their interests to other researchers and policy makers. Implementing the therapies that we are developing in TRACER, comes with great responsibility towards patients, donors, clinicians and to society and healthcare systems as a whole. Guided by my supervisors I conduct interviews with all the stakeholders of TRACER. Then, we develop different scenarios for the implementation of the therapies based on four principles: availability of the therapies, acceptability by patients, patient organizations and healthcare workers, accessibility at hospitals and clinics, and affordability of the treatment.

My PhD project is part of the lab research of professor Sjaak Philipsen at Erasmus MC. My initial focus is on the optimization of the protocol for differentiation of induced pluripotent stem cells into blood cells. This will help us better understand the mechanisms behind the end-to-end development of red blood cells and how we can optimize this process to develop better treatments for patients with inherited blood disorders.

For various patients suffering from congenital anemias, the exact molecular mechanisms that are causing their diseases are not yet fully understood. Within TRACER, my colleagues and I focus on unraveling these disease-causing mechanisms by studying patient-derived stem cell-lines. These stem cell-lines are extremely useful for this as it is an excellent disease-model and provides us an infinite source of material to work with. The knowledge that we will obtain from this can then be used to develop new treatment options for these patients.

To use stem cells as a therapy, a sufficient number of cells is required. Scale-up of stem cell production from lab to production scale is thus needed. Unfortunately, the translation of the small to large scale is non-trivial, as the conditions the cells experience differ significantly between scales. Our goal is to develop bioreactor technology for the expansion and differentiation of stem cells under controlled and defined conditions. To this end, I will use computer models to simulate what conditions cells experience at different scales. The insights obtained from the simulations will be used to guide the scale-up experiments in the lab, to ultimately develop an effective production process which yields sufficient cell quantities for cell therapy.

As a Bioprocess engineer, my main aim is to make accessible to society the benefits of biotechnology by upscaling processes from lab-scale to larger scales. This is achieved through designing bioreactor cultivation protocols to optimize cell growth. Within the TRACER consortium, my research focuses on developing a bioreactor cultivation process to standardize the expansion and development of iPSCs to control the production of hematopoietic cells. The use of bioreactors allows us to control the process, improve the reproducibility and facilitate the upscaling to produce sufficient cell quantities for cell therapy.

The success of blood transfusions and the need for matched blood donors can be significantly improved if patient-specific and transfusion-ready blood could be produced in labs. Within the TRACER consortium, I am conducting research to understand how we can direct stem cells to become fully functioning adult blood cells. We use blood from volunteers to make iPSC's. We then use these cells to investigate the biological processes that underlie blood cell development. By filling the gaps in our knowledge, we aim to scale up the production of blood cells in the future which would thereby alleviate the burden of blood donations and minimize transfusion rejections.

As one of my projects I will use my experience with stem cell cultures to optimize culturing conditions, allowing the generation of a large number of stem cells. Using induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (iPSC)-derived or primary blood stem cells, I will try to understand the molecular players governing the expansion of these cells while simultaneously maintaining their stem cell abilities. These new insights will be important for generating enough gene-edited stem cells and therefore assuring better stem cell transplantation quality.

As a pharmaceutical chemist, I work on developing advanced methods to deliver gene-editing tools like CRISPR to cells. Using biodegradable nanoparticles made from FDA-approved materials (PLGA), I aim to safely and effectively transport components needed for precise genetic modifications. My work also explores innovative approaches, like Base Editors, to enhance the precision of gene-editing technologies. This research contributes to creating more reliable and accessible therapies for genetic disorders.

As the Head of Cell Biology and Immunology at Wageningen University and Research, I advise and support the TRACER Consortium on various projects. I am also directly supervising Alvja in her work.

As representative of Stichting Zeldzame Bloedziekten, I am part of the TRACER User Committee and give advice to the researchers.

As representative of Stichting OSCAR, I am part of the TRACER User Committee and give advice to the researchers.

As representative of Sanquin, I am part of the TRACER User Committee and give advice to the researchers.

As representative of ZonMw, I am part of the TRACER User Committee and give advice to the researchers.