Annemarie received her Bachelor’s degree in Biology at the University of Groningen and continued there with her Master’s in Behavioural and Cognitive Neuroscience, specializing in Molecular and Clinical Neuroscience. For her Master thesis, she went to the University of British Columbia to study neurodevelopmental disorders, specifically autism spectrum disorder. There, she focused on the effect of a mutation in the Baf53b gene on the development of inhibitory neurons.

In March 2024, Annemarie started her PhD at the MERLN institute under the supervision of Silvia Bolognin. She will study the role of transcription factors in the development of Parkinson’s disease. Previous research has shown that neurogenesis is decreased in Parkinson’s disease and this project aims to better understand the mechanism behind that and possibilities to target it. For her project, she will generate brain organoids by using iPSC lines derived from patients as well as lines where key transcription factors are knocked out. This will shed light into the contribution of these transcription factors to the dopaminergic degeneration characterizing the pathology.