Niek E. Van Der Aa MD, PhD

Niek van der Aa was trained as a pediatrician and currently works as a neonatology fellow at the Wilhelmina Children's Hospital in Utrecht, The Netherlands. He combines his clinical work with research in the field of brain development and brain injury in the newborn. As a visiting research fellow, he spent time at the Department of Neonatology at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA, and at the Center for the Developing Brain, King's College, London, UK.

Niek has a special interest in neonatal stroke and focuses on improving the prediction of outcomes, MRI studies, and novel therapies. He was involved in the PASSIoN trial, a clinical study investigating the use of mesenchymal stem cells in newborns with neonatal stroke. By using advanced MRI techniques, he studies the impact of neonatal stroke on brain development, including the development of brain areas that were not primarily involved. By linking the MRI findings with long-term outcomes, he aims to get a better understanding of outcomes and provide future patients with a more accurate prognosis.