Prof. Dr. I. (Ingrid) Meulenbelt, PhD

I have been trained as a medical biologist at the University of Amsterdam (MSc Cum Laude) and conducted my PhD research on "Genetic predisposing factors of osteoarthritis" as well as postdoctoral research at TNO Prevention and Health in the Vascular & Connective Tissue Research department. Subsequently, I continued my scientific career in osteoarthritis research at the Molecular Epidemiology section of the Leiden University Medical Center, where I was appointed full professor in 2017. As a professor in the "Molecular Biology of Osteoarthritis" and head of the osteoarthritis research group and focus on the development of effective regenerative and curative treatments for osteoarthritis.

To alleviate the societal burden of osteoarthritis (OA), I study underlying disease mechanism of strong OA risk genes, test potential evidence based treatment options (novel and by repurposing), and explore regenerative medicines. Hereto, I strategically created a research line aiming at finding OA risk genes and -omic derived OA biomarkers, while setting up functional molecular (stem)cell biological research to obtain a more fundamental biological understanding of identified pathways. In doing so, human 3D in vitro organoids (primary- and hiPSC-derived cells) and human ex vivo models of joint tissues were set up, in which OA is induced by relevant environmental triggers such as mechanical injurious load, inflammation, and hypertrophy. CRISPR/Cas technology is applied to engineer appropriate OA gene manipulations. To study the interacting process between bone and cartilage tissue, I further established an osteochondral unit-on-a-chip model. These studies are performed within the context of Dutch Arthritis Association, TKI Health Holland, ZonMW-open, NOW-open, and H2020 grants.