We proudly celebrate the inauguration of prof. Elly Hol of our Translational Neuroscience department as a Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) member 🎊! She is one of the 22 new members who were at the historic Trippenhuis this Monday. This is a great honor given to a select group of scientists in the Netherlands

Elly Hol external link is Professor of Gliabiology of Brain Diseases and one of the heads of the Translational Neuroscience Department at the UMC Utrecht Brain Centre. Tained as a medical biologist with a specialisation in molecular neurobiology, she obtained her PhD in Utrecht. Next, she worked at the Max-Planck-Institute for Psychiatry in Martinsried with a Max-Planck Fellowship to. From 2013 onwards, Elly has worked as a principal investigator. In 2015, whe was appointed Professor of Gliabiology of Brain Diseases at the Utrecht University. She is a member of the Academia Europaea, chair of the scientific advisory board of Parkinson Netherlands, chair of GliaNed, programme leader of the Neuroscience master’s and PhD programme at Utrecht University Graduate School of Life Sciences, and education manager at the Brain Division of UMC Utrecht. Her inauguration was the results of years of contribution to the establishment of glia biology.

“Elly Hol belongs to the still small but growing group of neuroscientists who focus on the biology of glia. These are non-neuronal cells that play a crucial role in keeping our brain healthy. They act as stem cells and immune system, but can also derail. Hol has published a number of highly cited articles, in which she uncovers a correlation between certain proteins in the human brain and glial cells that play a role in the development of brain tumors and diseases such as Alzheimer’s and epilepsy. Hol is an important source of inspiration for young researchers, including through the national Glia network she leads and through personal mentorships for young female researchers.” KNAW

You can find more information on her research at our website and her lab page. More information on the inauguration is available on the Utrecht University and KNAW websites.