Simone G. J. Van Breda MSc, PhD, ERT

Simone van Breda studied Environmental Health Sciences at the Faculty of Health Sciences at Maastricht University, where she graduated in 2000. In 2004, she received her PhD at Maastricht University, after 4 years of investigating the effects of vegetables on gene expression changes in the colon and lung at the Department of Health Risk Analyses and Toxicology.

After she finished her PhD, she received a fellowship “Talent for the Future” from the Faculty of Health Sciences, to work as a postdoctoral fellow for a period of ten months. During this appointment, she worked at the Human Nutrition Research Centre in the lab of Prof. dr. John C. Mathers, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom. Next, she was appointed as a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Health Risk Analyses and Toxicology of Maastricht University within an EU Network of Excellence on Environmental Carcinogenesis, Nutrition and Individual Susceptibility (ECNIS) to perform high throughput analysis of genetic polymorphisms relevant to the aetiology of cancer within the framework of the Netherlands Cohort Study on Diet and Cancer (NLCS). Subsequently, she worked as a postdoctoral fellow supported by the EU 6th Framework Integrated Project Newborns and Genotoxic exposure risks (NewGeneris); by the Transnational University Limburg (Tul); and, by the EU 7th Framework Program Project Detection of Endpoints and Biomarkers of Repeated Dose Toxicity using in vitro systems (DETECTIVE). Within the NewGeneris project, she was involved in the assessment of quantitative estimates of the intake of mothers, fathers, fetuses and newborns of several genotoxic and non-genotoxic compounds using food frequency questionnaires, and direct analytical data (biomarkers). Within the Tul project entitled ‘Identification of phytochemicals involved in the chemopreventive capacity of blueberry juice; a genomics approach’, she investigated the health-promoting properties of blueberries by means of a human dietary intervention study and in vitro studies using whole-genome microarray assays and several biomarker assays. Within the DETECTIVE project, a screening pipeline was set up of high content, high throughput epigenomics technologies to identify and investigate human biomarkers in cellular models for repeated dose in vitro testing for the replacement of animal tests.

In 2011, she was appointed as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Toxicogenomics. Her main research activities are within the DETECTIVE project where she is responsible for subproject 3 ‘-omics’ analyses, in particular epigenomics analyses comprising whole-genome DNA methylation, and whole-genome histone acetylation, and miRNA analyses. In line with this, she is currently setting up a DNA sequencing assay (Media-SEQ) for whole-genome analyses of DNA methylation changes in primary human hepatocytes.