L. (Lenie) van Rossem, PhD

I have a background in Nutrition and Epidemiology. My current research interest is the role of nutrition and lifestyle for fertility, pregnancy outcomes, and birth outcomes-for which I do both translational and valorization research. Earlier research had a focus on the early life course, from preconception to early childhood, as an important period for lifelong health.

• Pregnancy
• Epidemiology.
• Nutrition.
• Socio-economic health differences.
• Public health.
• Growth.
• Overweight and obesity.
• Cardiovascular risk.

Education

MSc Nutrition and Health, specialization Epidemiology and Public Health, Wageningen University.

MSc Health Sciences, specialization Public Health, NIHES.

Career

PhD thesis on social and ethnic inequalities in childhood overweight, department of Public Health/Generation R, Erasmus MC.

Assistant Professor in Public Health Epidemiology, Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, University Medical Center Utrecht.

Senior researcher in periconception epidemiology at Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Erasmus MC.

Previous studies in the lab have shown that autologous dendritic cells pulsed with allogenic tumor cell lysate was able to induce peripheral T cell activation and tumor-reactive T cell responses in patients with mesothelioma and pancreatic cancer. Current research focuses on how to initiate an effective immune response in the tumor as well as the tumor-draining lymph node using dendritic cell vaccination. Furthermore, we are studying novel approaches for (personalized) vaccination. In addition, we have identified T cell characteristics that underlie clinical efficacy of immune check inhibitors or chemotherapeutic agents in mesothelioma. The selected publications below give an impression of our work.