Student story Leroy

During my Master’s in Biology with a specialisation Health and Disease, I ended up in Houston, Texas for an internship at the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development, part of Baylor College of Medicine. Since the vaccine center was impressed with my practical laboratory skills, I was offered a job after graduating in 2013. I am certain that the high degree of laboratory work during the courses at Wageningen University were responsible for earning this opportunity. The vaccine center is specialized in developing vaccines for neglected tropical diseases. These diseases included worm-diseases (Hookworm, Ascariasis), protozoa (Chagas disease), and also viruses (Zika, SARS, COVID-19). We identify parasitic proteins that have ideal properties to serve as vaccine targets, and we use these to develop subunit or mRNA vaccines. These vaccine candidates are then tested in animal models for their efficacy. I am currently employed as a research associate and I am a part of the preclinical team. My work starts when the animal studies come to an end; I examine which antibodies and cytokines are present in the blood after vaccination, and I evaluate the properties of immune cells like T and B cells to understand what immunological response the vaccine elicited. I find this work very interesting and fun. I work on multiple vaccine projects, which means the research questions are always different. Knowledge from courses I followed at Wageningen University on immunology, parasitology and host-parasite interactions have prepared me well for my work. To this date, I use this knowledge every day.