On Tuesday October 18, Christiaan Huffels successfully defended his PhD thesis, titled “Tracing the signals: Unravelling neuron-glia interactions in Alzheimer’s disease”, at the Academiegebouw of Utrecht University. In his thesis, Christiaan examined the role of astrocytes and microglia in the early development of Alzheimer’s disease using a multidisciplinary approach, combining the use of slice electrophysiology, calcium imaging, immunohistochemistry, behavioral analyses, and pharmacological interventions. He was supervised by promotor Prof. dr. Elly Hol and co-promotor Dr. Jinte Middeldorp. For his next career step, he will continue his work as a postdoc in the lab of Prof. dr. Elly Hol at the University Medical Center Utrecht Brain Center, where he will focus on developing functional assays on human cell culture systems.

“I enjoyed working on this interesting topic for 4.5 years and I am grateful to have ended it in such a great way! It was a great day and I’m happy to continue working in the Hol lab to further develop my skills as a researcher” Christiaan Huffels

The work for his thesis was performed at the Translational Neuroscience department. His output include articles titled “Aß Pathology and Neuron-Glia Interactions: A Synaptocentric View” published at the Neurochemical Research and “Systemic Injection of Aged Blood Plasma in Adult C57BL/6 Mice Induces Neurophysiological Impairments in the Hippocampal CA1” published at Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease. We are looking forward to his contribution to the scientific research.