Daniëlle has an extensive knowledge of cell, tissue and virus culture based platforms, as well as in vivo models. After finishing four years of medicine and one year of European law school, both at the University of Maastricht, Daniëlle moved to Leiden to study biology.After graduating “Cum Laude ad Summos Honores” for her masters degree in Biology at Leiden university, Daniëlle was invited to set up in vitro and in vivo facilities at the GUC (German University of Cairo) in New Cairo City, Egypt. Upon return to the Netherlands, she accepted a PhD candidate position at the Dutch institute for public health and the environment (RIVM and University Utrecht). During her research at these labs she developed platforms for viral vaccine production, and viral expression systems (Vlecken D. et al., 2013). These platforms were based on adherent and suspension cell lines of animal origin. Later in her career, in the position of independent researcher at the University of Leiden (UL), Daniëlle started developing a snake venom production platform (Kerkkamp et al., 2018) on which a biotech company was based. In parallel, Daniëlle investigated the role of exosomes in the development of birds and fish. Daniëlle published 12 scientific papers on various topics and a book “Modulating the behaviour of pancreatic tumour cells” (ISBN 978-94-62285-80-4). A list of these published works can be found online: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=Vlecken+D&cauthor_id=29763628.