Tim Vanmierlo (T.)
Tim Vanmierlo is heading a research line on repair-inducing cognition enhancers in neurodegenerative disorders in close collaboration with Prof. dr. Jos Prickaerts and Prof dr. Daniel van den Hove. Therapeutic research in neurodegeneration mainly focuses on molecular mechanisms and disease hallmarks, but an improvement on the functional level is often neglected. Therefore, the research line on preclinical repair-inducing cognition enhancers in neurodegeneration couples a cognitive readout to molecular interventions in treatment of CNS damage so that we can provide a translational interpretation towards first-in-man trials. We focus on neurodegenerative disorders such as multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer’s disease.
You can contact us for:
- Functional and molecular readouts in animal models of multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer’s disease
- Molecular and cellular setups in relation to oligodendrocyte differentiation
- In vitro and in vivo gene-editing tools to modulate (epi)genetic processes on the cellular level (e.g. CRISPR/Cas9, in vivo micro-electroporation)

T. Vanmierlo
Since 2019, Tim Vanmierlo started a position as joint assistant professor between Hasselt University (0.5fte) and Maastricht University (0.5fte) on the research line repair-inducing cognition enhancers. In this context, he started a research line that applies a battery of gene-editing approaches (e.g. CRISPR/Cas9, in vivo micro-electroporation) to modulate biological processes to enable CNS repair in MS and AD. The established cross-border initiative between UHasselt BIOMED with the school for mental health and neuroscience (MHeNs) at Maastricht University merges knowledge and expertise on cognition enhancers applying gene-editing approaches. Tim Vanmierlo supervises 1 post doc, 7 PhD students and 3 technicians.