Marieke Essers PhD

Dr. Marieke Essers studied Medical Biology at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands. She then joined the group of Dr. Ir. Boudewijn Burgering at the division of Biomedical Genetics from the University Medical Center Utrecht (UMCU) in Utrecht. During her PhD work she focused on the role of FoxO transcription factors in quiescence and stress responses in cells. Upon obtaining her PhD, she then joined the Genetics and Stem Cell Lab of Dr. Andreas Trumpp at the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research (ISREC) in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Supported by an EMBO long-term fellowship she discovered an unexpected but very interesting effect of the cytokine IFNa on quiescent hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs). Since 2009 Marieke is running her own independent junior group at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) and the Heidelberg Institute for Stem Cell Technologies and Experimental Medicine (HI-STEM) in Heidelberg.