Sabine Daemen

Post doc

Dr Sabine Daemen obtained her Bachelor and Master degree Biomedical Sciences at Maastricht University. In 2014 she was awarded a NWO NUTRIM graduate grant to studymuscle lipotoxicity in type 2 diabetes as a PhD student in the Department of Nutrition and Movement Sciences under supervision of Prof. Matthijs Hesselink. Using advanced microscopic techniques, her research obtained important insights in how muscle fat contributes to insulin resistance.

After obtaining her PhD in 2019, she moved to the USA to start as a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Joel Schilling at Washington University in St. Louis. During her postdoctoral research she examined the role of macrophages in metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH (formerly NASH)) and was among the first to demonstrate distinct subpopulations of macrophages in murine and human MASH.

In 2022 Sabine obtained a MSCA Marie Curie Postdoctoral fellowship to return to Maastricht and continue her research on macrophage subpopulations in MASH in the lab of Dr Kristiaan Wouters. In this project she investigates the role of adipose tissue inflammation in driving hepatic macrophage phenotypes and the subsequent impact on MASH-associated fibrosis. For in-depth immunophenotyping of tissue and blood immune cells Sabine set-up a platform using spectral flow cytometry. She is also co-applicant on Dr Wouters TKI grant translATe-NASH in which she studies the human adipose tissue-liver axis in biopsies from patients.