Bernadette van den Hoogen
Bio
Dr. Bernadette van den Hoogen identified the Human Metapneumovirus in 2000/2001 and is currently heading the research group on "Pneumoviruses and interactions with the host immune system'' at the department of Viroscience, Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
After her discovery, she showed that HMPV is the second most common cause, after RSV, of lower respiratory infection in young children and that HMPV is nearly as common and as severe as influenza in older adults. Her research group at Erasmus MC studies all aspects of HMPV, such as epidemiology, evolution and virus-host interactions, with a focus on the interaction with the innate immune system. Her latest research provided insight in the evolution of HMPV and classification of different genotypes. In addition, her group showed that isolation of HMPV is far more efficient in organoid derived human epithelial cells than in standard monolayers.
Her research is funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) and by the EU's Horizon2020 research and innovation programme as coordinator of an Innovative Training Network (ITN) 'INITIATE" (https://initiate-itn.eu/).
