Esther Nolte-‘t Hoen
Principal Investigator
Associate Professor at Utrecht University, team-leader ‘EVs in immunity & infection’ at the division of Cell Biology, Metabolism & Cancer at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine. Nolte-‘t Hoen has been active in research on extracellular vesicles (EVs) for more than 15 years and has longstanding experience in studying the formation, composition, and function of EVs in various (patho)physiological processes, including immune responses and microbial infections. She received an ERC Starting Grant in 2013, after which she started her own independent research group. She developed methodology for high-throughput analysis and sorting of single EVs. Her EU/NWO-funded research focuses on regulatory mechanisms driving EV-mediated release of cargo (RNAs, proteins, and virus particles), and on how EV-mediated communication affects immune/anti-viral responses and inflammation. Nolte-‘t Hoen supports and serves the national and global EV-communities; She co-founded and is secretary general of the Netherlands Society for Extracellular Vesicles (NLSEV), participates in task forces of the International Society for Extracellular Vesicles (ISEV), co-organizes the annual EMBL (Heidelberg) hands-on training courses on EV research, and is associate editor for the Journal of Extracellular Vesicles.
Role in the project: She will coordinate the activities in WP1 regarding the identification and characterization of EV molecular structures driving cargo delivery in targeted bone cells.
Marije Kuipers
Post-doc
She holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Biomedical Sciences (both ‘cum laude’) from Leiden University. She was awarded 2 grants (LUMC excellent students and NWO Infection, Immunity & Tolerance) to perform her PhD work on characterization of extracellular vesicles released by Schistosoma mansoni and their role in immune modulation at the Parasitology department of the Leiden University Medical Center in collaboration with Utrecht University (2017-2021). In 2020, she joined the Netherlands Society for Extracellular Vesicles (NLSEV) as social media manager.
Role in the project: She will characterize tumor cell EVs and EV-mimics and use advanced proteomics-based strategies to identify proteins in the natural EVs that are involved in target cell binding and cargo delivery.