Education
Maastricht University is a research university that offers innovative and high quality academic programmes using methods of instruction that promote active learning to build knowledge and develop academic skills as well as an academic and professional attitude. Small group educational formats are applied in our entire study programme, including the concepts of Problem-Based Learning (PBL). Students are typically working in small groups, actively discussing problems and applying newly acquired knowledge in practical situations, while are given the opportunity to interact with scientists directly.
Staff members of Toxicogenomics have coordinating and active teaching roles in many bachelor and master studies at Maastricht University and their satellite campus in Geleen and Venlo. Employees of our department are major contributors to the bachelor and master studies Biomedical Sciences (BMS), but also participate in numerous other courses and programmes in the Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences (FHML), including the Health Sciences programme, European Public Health (EPH) as well as the Medical curriculum. For example, Prof Theo de Kok is vice-chairman of the honours programme at FHML. Simone van Breda is coordinator of the Biomedical Sciences bachelor block 1.1 “The LEGO bricks of life”. Jacco Briedé is chair of the educational program committee (EPC) of BMS and co-coordinator of the elective block 2.4b “Cell signaling” in the bachelor BMS. Twan van den Beucken is co-coordinator of block 1.6 “Critical Appraisal of Biomedical Publication”. Both Twan van den Beucken and Florian Caiment are planning group members in the “genetics and genomics” track of the master BMS and Florence van Tienen in “Regenerative Medicine” track of the same master. Bert Smeets is block planning group member of the bachelor course CORE of Biomedical Sciences. Next to that, prof Jos Kleinjans, Danyel Jennen and Jacco Briedé are staff members of the master Drug development and Neurohealth, a specialization track of the research master in Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience coordinated by the Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience. Bert Smeets was founder and first Programme Director of the Master of Systems Biology. Staff members, post-doctoral researchers and Ph.D. students of our department actively participate in many bachelor and master studies functioning as tutor, assessor, mentor or supervisor of practicals.
Furthermore, we guide students during their junior and senior internships for both bachelor and master studies, either within our department or externally. We also host students from Universities of Applied Sciences and other external research institutes and universities. All relevant themes of our research activities within in the School of Oncology & Developmental Biology (GROW) and School for Mental Health and Neuroscience (MHeNs) are covered in our internship programme, including: Toxicogenomics, Human (cancer) Risk Assessment, Predictive Toxicology, Food and Chemical Safety, Molecular Epidemiology and Prevention, Primary Mitochondrial Disease, Mitochondria in Complex Disorders, Muscle Stem Cell Therapy, Next-Generation Sequencing. If you are interested in our internships, please check on: https://fhmlweb.unimaas.nl/authentication/login.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2fStage%2fAanbieder%2fDefault.aspx or contact one of our staff members.
Additionally, the Department is involved in the Postgraduate Education in Toxicology (PET), a Dutch national programme for vocational postgraduate training in toxicology. Prof Jos Kleinjans and Danyel Jennen are coordinators of the Toxicogenomics course. This course provides an introduction on genomics technologies, i.e., gene expression profiling by microarray technologies or sequencing techniques and related data analysis, focusing on its application in toxicology. For more information please check: http://www.toxcourses.nl/courses/toxicogenomics/
Bert Smeets was one of the founders of the 4-year training-programme for post-docs to become Clinical Genetics Laboratory Specialist and has been trainer for many years. He also lectures in courses for neurologists in training. Finally, Bert Smeets is coordinator of TeenzCollege and the High School Summer College of Maastricht University to familiarize High-School Students with the University.