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Professor Niels Geijsen works on skeletal muscle disorders. He uses stem cell-based models to study skeletal muscle formation, homeostasis, and regeneration. In addition, he develops novel gene editing strategies to potentially treat genetic muscle disorders in the future.
Professor Niels Geijsen’s research focuses on how pluripotent stem cells develop into specific cell types. He in particular studies skeletal muscle development, muscle homeostasis (normal tissue maintenance) and regeneration. Professor Geijsen and his team have developed models in the lab that can be used to study the formation of normal muscle tissue, but also to investigate the influence of specific genetic abnormalities on the formation or repair of muscle tissue. In addition, his team develops new gene editing technologies aimed at treating patients with genetic muscle diseases.
Professor Geijsen is a principal investigator and theme lead of reWRITE, as well as the vice-director of reNEW’s Leiden node. Next to leading his lab, Professor Geijsen heads the department of Anatomy and Embryology at Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) in his capacity as professor in developmental biology and regenerative medicine. He has trained more than 40 PhD candidates.
Professor Geijsen is also co-editor in Chief of StemJournal and co-founder of the startups NTrans Technologies (which develops applications for iTOP transduction technology) and Divvly (which develops software tools to facilitate collaboration between research groups).
reNEW researchers have a strong track record of scientific excellence in stem cell biology
They have performed pioneering work in stem cell research spanning different tissue and cell types, different technological advances and different stages of applied research. This provides an unprecedented international opportunity to utilise the combined wealth of knowledge, complementary skills sets and clinical experience across reNEW to push stem cell discoveries toward translational outcomes.