Group van Wijk
Group van Wijk
Research interests uitklapper, klik om te openen
Chronic inflammatory disorders such as Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) and Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (JIA) represent a major health burden affecting over 10 million people in Europe alone. Current treatments suppress but do not cure disease, and there is still a fundamental gap in our understanding of how inflammation persists. My group focuses on T cell development, regulation and plasticity in health and chronic inflammation and addresses conceptual and mechanistic immunological questions with a strong link to the clinic. We are especially interested in what happens locally, in the (inflamed) tissues. We combine front-running profiling techniques such as (single-cell) RNA-sequencing, epigenetics, TCR sequencing, and CyTOF with (customized) functional assays. The ultimate goal is to break the self-sustaining loop of chronic inflammation.
Projects
- Naïve T cell development, heterogeneity, function, and imprinting
- Regulatory T cell functional programming and adaptation in tissues and inflammation
- Early T cell development in humans (neonates, breast milk and gut tissues)
- T cell aging and immune resilience (neonatal thymectomy, stem cell transplantation, elderly)
- Mechanisms and side effects of (novel) targeted immune interventions in chronic inflammation (IBD, AD)
- T cell tissue adaptation in health and inflammation (skin, gut, joint, blood)
- Mechanisms of checkpoint inhibitor induced toxicity
- Biomarker discovery for (at-home) monitoring and prediction of chronic inflammatory diseases (JDM, IBD, AD)
- Molecular classification of chronic inflammatory diseases
- Autologous stem cell transplantation for autoimmune diseases
Keypublications uitklapper, klik om te openen
Members Group van Wijk uitklapper, klik om te openen
Postdocs
- Jorg Calis
- José ter Linde
- Theo van den Broek (guest)
Research technicians
- Marlot van der Wal (senior)
- Leonie van Noort
PhD students
- Saskia Veldkamp
- Anoushka Samat
- Mick van Eijs
- Coco Dekkers
- Lisanne Lutter
- Eelco Brand
- Coco Dekkers
- Elise Saager
- Roselie Achten (guest)
- Irena Muffels (guest)
Clinical principle investigators collaborations/co-supervisors
- Prof. Dr. Bas Oldenburg (gastroenterology)
- Dr. Herma Fidder (gastroenterology)
- Prof. Dr. Marjolein de Bruijn (dermatology)
- Dr. Judith Thijs (dermatology)
- Dr. Annet van Royen-Kerkhof (pediatric immunology/rheumatology)
- Dr. Marc Jansen (pediatric immunology/rheumatology)
- Dr. Bas Vastert (pediatric immunology/rheumatology)
- Dr. Karijn Suijkerbuijk (medical oncology)
- Dr. Helen Leavis (clinical immunology)
- Prof. Dr. Louis Bont (pediatric infectious diseases)
- Dr. Koos Jansen (pediatric intensive care)
- Dr. Peter van Hasselt (pediatric metabolic diseases)