Causal and Mechanistic Pathways Linking Climate and Health

I aim to contribute to Horizon Europe Cluster 1 (Health) consortia addressing climate change, environmental pollution, and human health, with a focus on air pollution, climate extremes, and disease risk across the life course.

My expertise lies in uncovering causal and mechanistic pathways linking climate-related environmental exposures to organ dysfunction and long-term disease susceptibility. My research focuses on the sustained impact of real-world PM2.5 and heat stress on organ resilience, early-life programming, impaired repair capacity, and accelerated organ aging.

I bring mechanistic depth through:
– Experimental dissection of cellular, metabolic, and inflammatory pathways driven by climate stressors
– Identification of mechanisms underlying loss of tissue resilience and increased disease susceptibility
– Translation of in vivo multi-omics to human biopsy and clinical transcriptomic data
– Discovery of mechanistically informed biomarkers of exposure, vulnerability, and early disease

I previously led the PMkidney consortium, a Netherlands–Brazil collaboration (concluded 2025) centered on a unique long-term exposome chamber enabling chronic, controlled exposure of mice (up to 18 months) to real-world PM2.5. This infrastructure is among the few globally capable of modeling realistic lifetime particulate exposure. PMkidney generated a deeply annotated multi-organ biobank and combined pollution exposure with established organ injury models to directly assess effects on tissue repair and disease susceptibility.

Using this platform, my group developed a tissue-level exposomics framework integrating bulk and spatial transcriptomics, metabolomics, and lipidomics. A key strength is the translational design, enabling direct mapping of molecular signatures from animal models to human biopsy cohorts, currently focused on kidney tissue with expansion to liver and lung.

Building on this infrastructure, I am currently involved in the NWO-funded RENAL-HEAT-MAP project (LUMC–University of São Paulo), which combines real-world PM2.5 exposure with heat stress and organ injury models. PMkidney has concluded, and RENAL-HEAT-MAP is modular, allowing me to commit dedicated leadership capacity to Horizon Europe consortia.

In parallel, I have access to well-characterized cohorts of vulnerable individuals, including kidney transplant recipients in the Netherlands and Brazil, enabling translational validation of exposure-responsive mechanisms and biomarkers. I also collaborate with kidney patient organizations to support dissemination and societal impact.

I seek to join consortia that:
– Move beyond associations toward biological causality
– Integrate climate science, exposure assessment, and biomedical research
– Address climate extremes and cumulative stressors
– Focus on vulnerable populations across the life course
– Emphasize prevention, adaptation, and risk reduction

I am keen to contribute as a work package leader for mechanistic studies, experimental validation, and cross-species translation. As part of Leiden University Medical Center, I have direct access to state-of-the-art genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, imaging, bioinformatics, animal, and biobanking infrastructure readily deployable within Horizon Europe projects.