Speaker Profile
H. B.j. (marcel) Karperien

H. B.j. (marcel) Karperien PhD

Biotechnology
Enschede, Overijssel, Netherlands

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Marcel Karperien, born in Uden, March 7th 1967, studied Biology at Utrecht University. After graduation in 1991 he worked as a PhD-student at the Hubrecht Laboratory, the Netherlands Institute for Developmental Biology and Stem Cell Research under the supervision of professors Siegfried de Laat, Arie Verkleij and dr. Bas Defize. During his PhD training, his work was focused on elucidating the role of Parathyroid Hormone Receptor-signaling in early embryonic development.
Part of his work as a PhD-student was performed at the Endocrine Unit of the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. He then continued working as a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Endocrinology of the Leiden University Medical Center, in Leiden the Netherlands in collaboration with prof. Clemens Lowik. In collaboration with prof. Lowik and prof. Jan Maarten Wit of the Department of Pediatrics he successfully set up his own research group, first as assistant and from 2006 onwards as associate professor.
In his research a focused on various aspects of bone and cartilage formation in relation to disorders of bone growth by endochondral ossification and osteoporosis from a developmental biological perspective and started focusing on understanding the cellular and molecular basis of hyaline cartilage formation. He realized that this knowledge had great potential for translation into strategies to repair degenerative joint diseases. He also realized that for the translation of this knowledge into clinically applicable solutions for treatment of cartilage diseases, technological input was paramount. This could not be easily realized in the clinical setting of the LUMC.
For this reason he took, in 2007, the opportunity to continue his work at the Tissue Regeneration group headed by prof. Clemens van Blitterswijk at the MIRA Institute for Biomedical Technology and Technical Medicine of the University of Twente as associate professor. This career move provided me with access to state of the art technology in biomaterial research and in particular polymer chemistry, tissue engineering and controlled drug delivery and proved to be extremely successful.
Starting from scratch in 2007, my research group has exponentially grown and consists presently of 13 PhD-students and 1 technician, all paid by external funding, which he raised in the past years, and two assistant professors. His work is characterized by a multidisciplinary approach in which he combine the latest advancements in polymer chemistry and biomaterial processing, particularly in hydrogel formation, with tissue engineering, controlled drug delivery, animal experimentation, medicine and developmental biology of bone and cartilage. It is aimed at the development of innovative solutions for the treatment of degenerative cartilage disease.
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