Wetenschapslunch Psychiatry meetings by Zoom

Posted by Admin on September 2020
Due to the current COVID-19 pandemic and until further notice these meetings unfortunately can only take place virtually.

Please note that Zoom doesn’t work within the Erasmus workplace environment. Zoom can be installed on smartphones, tablets, laptops and other pc’s, you can download it through the app store or website: www.zoom.us.

! We would like to ask all participants to put their microphone on mute while joining the meeting and their video on as it’s much more pleasant for presenters to see the participants faces.

If you have questions during the presentation, please let the speaker know by chat so he/she’ll be able to ask you to either unmute yourself or to ask the question by chat. Preferably, speakers would number their slides to make it easier in case of questions to refer to a certain slide.
We would like to start the meeting exactly on time at 12 h so we ask presenters to login approximately 10 minutes in advance to make sure their slide sharing settings are correct. Moreover, particularly given the digital platform, we would strongly ask everyone not to share any patient sensitive data during these meetings!

Please find below the Zoom details for the meeting:

Link: https://zoom.us/j/91495137605?pwd=S2E2Ynlkbm5qc052eFpTbkFxVElHdz09

Meeting ID: 914 9513 7605
Passcode: 636753

Kind regards,

Steven Kushner, also on behalf of Mariëlle Caspers, Joke Tulen and Witte Hoogendijk

Joint appointment of Prof. dr. Steven Kushner at the Columbia University Department of Psychiatry in New York

Posted by Admin on January 2020
We are pleased to announce the joint appointment of Prof. dr. Steven Kushner at the Columbia University Department of Psychiatry in New York beginning March 1st, as an extension of his continued appointment at the department of Psychiatry at Erasmus MC.

This collaboration marks a further expansion of the GEZIN study bringing together psychiatric genetics, stem cell modeling and translational neurobiology, and offers unique opportunities for knowledge exchange and visits between faculty, staff and students of the department of Psychiatry of Erasmus MC and Columbia University.

ZonMW Create2Solve challenge grant for Femke de Vrij

Posted by Admin on January 2020
We are pleased to inform you that Femke de Vrij has been awarded 100k Euro for a first-phase grant of the ZonMW Create2Solve challenge for the study 'An animal-free human 3D cortical network platform for screening myelination and inflammation phenotypes'.

Project description:

Recent developments in induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology offer the unique opportunity to implement lineage-specific human cellular models suitable for drug development applications. In this project, researchers will expand their established platform for 3D neural networks of human brain cells that resemble the human frontal cortex in early development. An industry partner contributes innovative synthetic extracellular matrix technology to support 3D structure formation. The resulting 3D MICrobrains model the essence of cortical structure formation in a miniature format that is literally about 1millionth the size of a normal human brain. The platform will contain all relevant cell types: functional neurons and glial cell types in layered radial structures, including astrocytes, myelinating white matter cells (oligodendrocytes) and cells that are crucial for immune responses in the brain (microglia). Moreover, this advanced animal-free 3D MICro-brain platform is amenable to high throughput analyses for screening purposes.

Demi Brizee awarded Thesis Prize for Biology

Posted by Admin on December 2019
Demi Brizee has been awarded the Young Talent Thesis Prize for Biology for her master thesis written for the Research Master in Neuroscience, titled 'Activity-dependence of parvalbumin interneuron myelination.' The prize was awarded by the Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities (Koninklijke Hollandsche Maatschappij der Wetenschappen) and was sponsored by Enza Zaden.

In her thesis, Demi described how myelination, the insulating protective layer surrounding brain cells, could be changed in the adult brain by activity of the brain cells themselves. Unexpectedly, these changes were accompanied by alterations in the shape of the cells. Demi’s thesis shows that the brain, even in adult age, remains plastic in various manners, which could potentially be important for the treatment of various brain disorders.

The thesis work was performed in the Department of Psychiatry at the Erasmus University Medical Center under supervision of Prof. dr. Steven Kushner. The thesis has been published in the leading Journal of Neuroscience.