Medical Science Liaison in psychiatry and neurology in the Netherlands.

During my PhD I led several projects investigating potential novel drugs for schizophrenia to successful completion. I coordinated an international collaboration with the pharmaceutical company Intra-Cellular Therapies, Uppsala University, Gothenburg University and Karolinska Institutet. In this project I designed, performed and analyzed experiments leading to publications in international peer reviewed journals. For these publications, I wrote the manuscript, navigated the peer review process and was corresponding author. I gave several presentations at international scientific conferences and was awarded the Sunovion Young Scientist award at the Scandinavian College of Neuropsychopharmacology 2017. I gained profound skills in behavioral pharmacology techniques such as the conditioned avoidance response test and the novel object recognition test. Moreover, I have extensive experience in the biochemical techniques microdialysis and amperometry.I supervised ten successful master thesis projects, of which nine students passed their course with distinction. In addition to this, I helped organize the pharmacology course for Bachelor students.

I investigated the novel rapidly acting antipsychotic drug sodium nitroprusside in the lab of Torgny Svensson. I used the conditioned avoidance response test and the microdialyis technique to study the antipsychotic potential of this drug.

In the lab of professor Louk Vanderschuren I worked with the 5 choice serial reaction time task, which I used to investigate the involvement of the neurexin 1 gene and juvenile play deprivation on impulsivity, behavioural inhibition and cognitive flexibility in rats. Furthermore, I also tested neurexin 1 KO rats in the probabilistic discounting task to study their impulsivity.

I worked as an Intern in the lab of professor Ronald Oosting in the department of psychopharmacology.Here I investigated the effects of the novel antidepressant vilazodone on sexual behaviour in male rats. We found that vilazodone has less sexual side effects than the ‘conventional’ SSRI paroxetine.

A double blind placebo controlled study to examine the effects of alcohol mixed with energy drink on subjective intoxication.