About
Introduction
M.P.H. (Wendy) Koster, MSc, MD, PhD, has degrees in medicine (2007) and epidemiology (2010) from the University of Utrecht. As a PhD student at the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM; 2007-2010) she identified and validated (bio)markers to improve the screening program for chromosomal abnormalities early in pregnancy. For this research she was awarded the RIVM Young Investigator Awardand the Innovation Award of the Dutch Association for Community Genetics and Public Health Genomics (NACGG).
She continued working as a postdoc researcher at the department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology of the UMC Utrecht (2010-2015). Here, she gradually expanded her research to broader screening for placenta-related pregnancy complications, such as preeclampsia and intra uterine growth restriction. She was the PI of two government-funded projects, including a prospective multicenter study to improve risk profiling in early pregnancy by validating prediction models for pregnancy complications (RESPECT study). The results of this study have been published in the BMJ. This publication was awarded the Netherlands Epidemiological Society Award for best paper published by a young investigator in 2017.
Her current research at Erasmus MC (2016-present) focuses on the early prediction and prevention of pregnancy complications and their association with placental development and cardiovascular risk factors. She has studied the pathological mechanisms of these complications through biomarker-, imaging- and placenta studies. In 2017, she was awarded an Erasmus MC Fellowship for talented post-doctoral researchers for a prospective cohort study to investigate associations between hemodynamic adaptation to pregnancy, placental vascular development and pregnancy outcome (HAPPO study).
Publications
A complete overview of publications can be found here:
