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.: De Krom, Mariken

Past NENS Committee Member

Mariken de Krom, Dr
Rudolf Magnus Institute of Neuroscience
Huispost Stratenum 5.203
Universiteitsweg 100
3584 CG
Utrecht, The Netherlands
Phone: +31-30-253-8110
Fax: +31-30-253-9032
E-mail: m.dekrom-3@umcutrecht.nl
Website:

Personal Information

Current affiliation: Rudolf Magnus Institute of Neuroscience, UMC Utrecht, The Netherlands
Date and place of birth: 19 September 1976, Schiedam, The Netherlands

Curriculum Vitae

Professional and academic career

Sept 1988 - Jun 1994
VWO, Schiedam
Sept 1994 - Aug 1998
Medical Biology (Msc), department of Biology, University of Amsterdam
Sept 1998 - Nov 2002
PhD student at the department of Cell biology and Genetics, Erasmus University Rotterdam. Thesis defense: 22 November 2002
Nov 2002 - Dec 2002
Post-doctoral fellow at the department of Cell biology and Genetics, Erasmus University Rotterdam.
Jan 2003 - May 2004
Post-doctoral fellow at the department of Pharmacology and Anatomy, Rudolf Magnus Institute of Neuroscience, University Medical Center Utrecht.
May 2004 - Dec 2006
Associate Professor/Lecturer master Neuroscience and Cognition at the department of Pharmacology and Anatomy, Rudolf Magnus Institute of Neuroscience, University Medical Center Utrecht.
Jan 2007-current
Coordinator Rudolf Magnus Institute of Neuroscience and Rudolf Magnus Graduate School of Neuroscience. Second coordinator master Neuroscience and Cognition. Policy employ Dutch National Academic "Parelsnoer" project.

Research interests

During my PhD I worked on the transcriptional machinery of the globin loci and learned and acquired diverse molecular and cellular techniques and made and analysed several transgenic mouse lines. After my PhD I started to work on the molecular and genetic background of psychiatric disorders and mainly focused on eating disorders like anorexia nervosa and obesity. I obtained a "Horizon Breakthrough" grant and implemented a new transgenic technique combined with lentiviral-siRNA technology to be able to investigate the role of neuropeptides in energy balance in vivo.
Furthermore my interest lies in phenotype-genotype relationships, and to use these relationships to work out the genes involved in the occurrence and the development of phenotypes specific for (psychiatric) disorders, doing neurogenetic studies. Using phenotypic parameters, based on eating behaviour, I recently have been able to identify high-risk alleles for these phenotypes within an epidemiological cohort (de Krom et al Diabetes 2007). I have done several association studies with known candidate genes for anorexia nervosa, and published several papers on this topic. Recently I have finished, together with the department of Psychiatry of the UMC Utrecht, a large-scale genetic study on the genetic factors involved in disorders of child psychiatry, like anorexia nervosa, autism and ADHD. This study was done to investigate a possible shared genetic background for these psychiatric disorders (paper submitted for publication).

Honors and awards

Horizon Breakthrough: Reg.Nr. 050-71-003, 2003 "siRNA receptor knockdown in transgenic rats as tool to identify drug targets"(euro 100.000)

Administrative and organisational experience (e.g. organization of national and international meetings, public awarness events, responsibilities as officer of societies, committees etc.)

2007
Organisation of the international research workshops of the Institute of Psychiatry, London and the Rudolf Magnus Institute of Neuroscience, Utrecht. (11-12 June 2007 and 26, 27 November 2007)
2007
Organisation of the Rudolf Magnus Symposium, The Netherlands (31 October 2007)
2007
Member of the Dutch policy committee of the "Parelsnoer" project, which involves all 8 academic medical centers in the Netherlands. Member of the policy committee of the same project at UMC Utrecht level.

Activities related to organization of national or international training of students (e.g. schools or other educational activities)

Over the past 2 years I have taken several initiatives to come to a better (coordinated) educational program in Neurosciences, in The Netherlands.
Firstly, I have organized for all coordinators in Neuroscience Master and PhD programs in The Netherlands (appr. 15 in total) to meet on a regular basis, to make an overview of all programs. This overview will be put on the website of the Dutch NeuroFederation and is primarily meant to update students on interesting courses that they may want to follow elsewhere. Agreements on exchange are presently underway. We also use this discussion platform (chaired by me) to synergize on generally experienced problems, such as how to deal with specific deficiencies. As a result a webclass is now being developed for Master students with a deficiency in Neurosciences, available for all Master programs in The Netherlands; we also plan to develop such a webclass for deficiencies in Statistics at the PhD level.
Secondly, I have initiated and organized special symposia for talented (and selected) Dutch Master students in Cognitive and Neuroscience programs, during our annual EndoNeuroPsycho Meeting (i.e. the annual meeting of the Dutch NeuroFederation). This was a great success and as of now will be a standard activity during the Meeting.
2004- current
Responsible for the organisation of master classes for the students of the master Neuroscience and Cognition In Utrecht.
2004- current
Chair of the student committee responsible for the organisation of the student symposium of the master Neuroscience and Cognition in Utrecht.
2005- current
Coordinator of theoretical courses of the master Neuroscience and Cognition (Essentials of Neuroscience (2 weeks) and Fundamentals of Neuroscience (10 weeks)), Utrecht
2005
Coordinator international Neuroscience course in Krakow, Poland
2006- current
Chair of the discussion platform for coordinators of the national Neuroscience and Cognition master programs and the directors/coordinators of the Neuroscience Graduate Schools in the Netherlands.
2007- current
Chair of the student committee, responsible for the organisation of the student symposia during the Dutch Endo-Neuro-Psycho meeting.
2007- current
Responsible for the training program of the PhD students at the Rudolf Magnus Graduate School of Neuroscience (including summer school organisation).

Selected Publications

  • Imam AM, Patrinos GP, de Krom M, Bottardi S, Janssens RJ, Katsantoni E, Wai AW, Sherratt DJ, Grosveld FG. "Modification of human beta-globin locus PAC clones by homologous recombination in Escherichia coli." Nucleic Acids Res. 2000 Jun 15;28(12):E65.
  • de Krom M, van de Corput M, von Lindern M, Grosveld F, Strouboulis J. "Stochastic patterns in globin gene expression are established prior to transcriptional activation and are clonally inherited." Mol Cell. 2002 Jun;9(6):1319-26.
  • Katsantoni EZ, de Krom M, Kong-a-San J, Imam AM, Grosveld F, Anagnou NP, Strouboulis J. "An embryonic-specific repressor element located 3' to the Agamma-globin gene influences transcription of the human beta-globin locus in transgenic mice." Exp Hematol. 2004 Feb;32(2):224-33.
  • Patrinos GP, de Krom M, de Boer E, Langeveld A, Imam AM, Strouboulis J, de Laat W, Grosveld FG. "Multiple interactions between regulatory regions are required to stabilize an active chromatin hub." Genes Dev. 2004 Jun 15;18(12):1495-509.
  • De Krom M, Bakker S, Hendriks J, van Elburg A, Hoogendoorn M, Verduijn W, Sinke R, Kahn R and Adan R "Polymorhisms in the Brain-derived Neurothrophic Factor gene are not associated with either anorexia nervosa or schizophrenia in Dutch patients." Psychiatric Genetics 2005 15:81
  • Mariken de Krom, Corine E. de Rijke, Judith Hendriks, Annemarie A. van Elburg and Roger A.H. Adan "Mutation analysis of the agouti related protein promoter region and the melanocortin-3 receptor in anorexia nervosa patients." Psychiatric Genetics 2005 15:237
  • M. de Krom, J. Hendriks, J.J. Hillebrand, A.A. van Elburg, R.A.H. Adan. "A polymorphism in the 3’ UTR of the CCK gene is associated with AN in Dutch patientsPsychiatr Genet." Psychiatr Genet. 2006 Dec;16(6):239
  • Adan RA, Tiesjema B, Hillebrand JJ, la Fleur SE, Kas MJ, de Krom M. "The MC4 receptor and control of appetite." Br J Pharmacol. 2006 Dec;149(7):815-27.
  • Mariken de Krom, Annemarie van Elburg, Pierre M. Zelissen and Roger A.H. Adan "Eating disorders and obesity Psychopharmacogentics" edit. Gorwood and Hamon, Publisher Spinger 2006.
  • de Krom M, van der Schouw YT, Hendriks J, Ophoff RA, van Gils CH, Stolk RP, Grobbee DE, Adan R. "Common genetic variations in CCK, leptin, and leptin receptor genes are associated with specific human eating patterns." Diabetes. 2007 Jan;56(1):276-80.