Throughout my career, I have been intrigued by the molecular aspects of life and exploring the mechanisms that underlie human disease by fundamental and translational research. During my PhD-research ( that I conducted in collaboration Heidelberg University (Germany), National Institutes of Health (Bethesda, USA), University of Wisconsin (USA) and University of Aberdeen (Scotland), I studied how metabolic stress induced by major surgery or hypothermia affect the immune system with relevance to acute kidney injury (AKI), while hibernating animals have increased resistance against this type of stress. My training as PhD (“Immunologic aspects of hibernation as leads in the treatment of acute organ injury”) combined with my medical education provides me with a strong and unique background for integrating clinical medicine with fundamental and translational research in pharmacology, metabolism and immunology. I am certified as immunologist and clinical and experimental pharmacologist, which provides me with extensive knowledge on drug development and allows me to successfully translate fundamental findings on the molecular regulation of metabolism into drug development. During and after my training as internist-acute medicine I continued my research into the interaction between metabolic stress, specifically sepsis, and acquired mitochondrial dysfunction with relevance to acute kidney injury. To identify early risk markers (i.e. biomarkers, physiological patterns) predictive of the clinical response to intervention(s) with relevance to both short- and long-term outcome in sepsis and facilitate drug discovery, I have founded the Acutelines biobank in the emergency department (see: www.acutelines.nl or linkedin.com/company/acutelines) and steer a translational research group working on clinical data, biomaterials and preclinical models of sepsis (www.sepsisresearch.nl).