Liesbeth Verhagen works within the UMC Utrecht Regenerative Medicine program together with Koen Braat. She is involved in isolation and culture of mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) from various sources. This is extended to the generation, expansion, maintenance and characterization of immortalized MSC lines.
She studies differentiation of MSC towards different lineages and initially focuses on the differentiation towards the osteogenic lineage. During this process, her initial attention is focused on the components of the protein kinase B (PKB/c-akt) signaling pathway. She will identify critical components of this pathway and characterise their role in regulating MSC functionality.