Dr. Femke de Vrij is associate professor at the Department of Psychiatry at Erasmus MC. She received her MSc degree in Medical Biology from the University of Utrecht in 1999. As a PhD student, she worked on the molecular basis of Alzheimer′s disease at the Dutch Brain Institute (NIN) in Amsterdam, where she obtained her PhD in 2005. After a postdoc at the department of Clinical Genetics at the Erasmus MC, working on the neurobiology of Fragile X syndrome, she joined the Neurobiological Psychiatry group in February 2010 where she is now coordinating the induced pluripotent stem cell related projects. Throughout her research, she has maintained a consistent theme of successfully establishing cell culture models for investigating brain disorders. She has managed to establish a wide diversity of human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived neural cell culture techniques including 3D models, supervising a team of talented PhD and master students with the aim of studying the neurobiology of psychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders. In recognition of her work, she received a Hersenstichting Nederland Fellowship in 2013, an Erasmus MC Human Disease Model Award in 2018, and was involved as iPSC scientist in multiple collaborative grants (Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Hersenstichting Nederland TNS program, NWO Zwaartekracht NOCI).