dr. M. (Maaike) de Vries

Maaike de Vries studied Pharmacy at the University of Groningen (Master in 2009, cum laude). In 2015, she obtained her PhD at the University of Groningen on the role of the survival kinase Pim1 on the airway epithelium exposed to environmental triggers. A total of 15 months of her PhD training were performed at the University of Southampton, UK, which was financially supported by a European Respiratory Society Long Term Research Fellowship. After her PhD, she shifted her research towards human population studies, focusing on the etiology of COPD while emphasising the role of environmental factors. As translational post-doctoral researcher at the department of Epidemiology, she integrates (epi)genome-wide identification approaches in human population studies with functional studies, using cutting edge ex vivo and in vitro models to elucidate the etiology of COPD. Recently, Maaike got awarded with the Junior Investigator grant of the Lung Foundation Netherlands to investigate the functional role of DNA methylation in the etiology of COPD.