Amber Penning

Dutchie with a big passion for Alzheimer’s research, and an even bigger passion for vrijdagmiddagborrels. My research interests are investigating the complex cellular and homeostatic dysfunction underlying Alzheimer’s Disease, and how we can design new therapeutics to tackle the disease. I’ve obtained my Master’s degree in Neuroscience from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam during which I did internships in both clinical and fundamental research. After my final internship in the lab of Paul Frankland, focused on neurogenesis, I became very interested in this topic and I am happy to be able to combine this with my interest in Alzheimer’s disease at the Neurogenesis & Neurodegeneration lab at the NIN. I study the therapeutic potential and mechanistic of microRNA-132, a small non-coding RNA involved in multiple aspects of Alzheimer’s disease pathology, including neurogenesis. In my experiments, I use iPSC-derived neurons and microglia-like cells and an AD mouse model, in which I manipulate the levels of miR-132 and perform bulk RNA-sequencing to look at the transcriptomic profile.