Sébastien Foulquier

Assistant Professor

Sébastien Foulquier studied pharmaceutical sciences at the Faculty of Pharmacy of Nancy, France from 2002 until 2008 where he specialized in R&D. He joined the Cardiovascular division of the Servier Research Institute in Suresnes for his senior internship before graduating with a Pharm.D. thesis awarded as “Best experimental Pharm.D. thesis”. He pursued his studies with a Master in Cardiovascular physiopathology and pharmacology in Lyon, France and a PhD in Cardiovascular Pharmacology at Nancy University, France. During his PhD, he studied the impact of hypertension and the renin angiotensin system on the structure and function of the cerebral circulation in vivo. He completed his PhD in 3 years and got awarded with a prize for the best PhD thesis from the Faculty of Pharmacy. He joined Maastricht University in July 2012 as post-doctoral researcher.

Since 2012, Sebastien is leading research projects on cerebral small vessel disease, the most common form of Vascular Cognitive Impairment, with a focus on the contribution of vascular risk factors to Blood Brain Barrier dysfunction, microglial activation and cognitive dysfunction. He has obtained research grants from the European Society of Hypertension and Servier in 2015, from the Young Talent Program of the Dutch Heart Foundation-CVON 'Heart-Brain Connection' in 2016, from the European Foundation for the Study of Diabetes EFSD-Boehringer Ingelheim in 2018 together with Prof C. Schalkwijk and Prof R. van Oostenbrugge. He has participated in several EU projects and is currently involved as PI in the H2020-ITN-MINDSHIFT consortium and as WP leader in the H2020-CRUCIAL project. Since July 2018, he is affiliated at both Cardiovascular (CARIM) and Neuroscience (MHeNS) Institutes in Maastricht. Sebastien got promoted to Assistant Professor in 2020 and is now leading an experimental research group studying the vascular-glial interplay and its relevance for Cerebral Small Vessel Disease (cSVD). Beyond gaining more insights into cSVD pathobiology, he strives to identify key molecular and cellular targets to prevent and/or delay cSVD progression.