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Joost Brinks

Leiden University Medical Center, The Netherlands

Mentor: Dr. C.J.F. Boon

"The role of corticosteroids in the pathogenesis of central serous chorioretinopathy"

Joost Brinks, a Ph.D. candidate at Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands, has received IFER funding from 2018-2021 for his project, “The role of corticosteroids in the pathogenesis of central serous chorioretinopathy.” Joost's project seeks to develop a cell-based model to study central serous chorioretinopathy (CSC), a vision-threatening eye disease. He will be conducting his studies with human-relevant cells, which have the potential to generate data which translates better to human patients than ocular animal models, which are often used in such studies. It is known that corticosteroids increase the risk of developing CSC, but the mechanism for how this occurs remains elusive. Blood vessel cells derived from patient induced pluripotent stem cells will be examined for their responses to corticosteroids. Results from this study will help researchers better understand how CSC develops and identify new strategies for treatment.