Changes in NADP Executive Board and NADP Support Office

15 March 2021

Several changes took place in the NADP Executive Board and NADP Support Office.

In 2020, prof. dr. Suzan Rooijakkers (Department of Medical Microbiology, UMC Utrecht) replaced prof. dr. Marc Bonten in the NADP Executive Board.

Suzan Rooijakkers’ field of expertise is to unravel the molecular mechanisms underlying bacterial killing by the human immune system. In particular, she investigates the molecular functioning of the complement system, a large protein network in plasma that plays an essential role in the immune response against all invading bacteria. In 2015, she obtained the prestigious ERC Starting Grant that is aimed at providing in-depth insights into these bacterial killing mechanisms. She has recently established novel methods to study complement activation in highly purified model systems, allowing us to provide insight into MAC-dependent killing of bacteria.

In 2019, prof. dr. Cornelis Boersma (Faculty of Management Sciences, Open University, Heerlen and Global Health Unit, Department of Health Sciences, University Medical Center Groningen/University of Groningen) joined the NADP.

Cornelis has a master’s degree in pharmacy and a PhD in pharmaco-epidemiology, health economics and health policy. He has extensive experience in healthcare from various roles as consultant, scientist and the various positions he held at the pharmaceutical industry. At GSK he worked in different leadership roles in the Netherlands as well as on European and Global level. In July 2018, Cornelis started as an independent consultant, healthcare entrepreneur, health-economic researcher at the Global Health Unit of the University Medical Center Groningen and he is professor ‘Sustainable Health and Innovation’ at the Open University. As board-member of the NADP, he is responsible for the forward-looking strategy, private-public collaborations and business development for antibiotics and alternatives.

In 2020, dr. Maribel Adame (Institute of Biology, Leiden University) replaced Heine van Wieren and later Nicole van Erp as Secretary to the Board of NADP. Maribel Adame is Research Policy Officer and Coordinator External Cooperation at the Institute of Biology Leiden.

She has extensive work experience in academia, the private sector and non-governmental organisations. From 2013 to 2018, she worked at the Faculty of Archaeology at Leiden University, managing European and Dutch-funded research projects. Before that, she worked as a Senior Healthcare Community Manager at the World Economic Forum in Geneva, Switzerland, and has held different positions in the private sector. She worked as Product Marketing Manager at Nucletron and Medis Medical Imaging Systems, and as Clinical Education Specialist at GE Healthcare, building the bridge between people, technology and healthcare. She holds an MSc in Telecommunication Engineering from the University of Seville in Spain (2002), a PhD in Medical Imaging from the University of Leiden in the Netherlands (2007), and an MBA from the University of Liverpool in the UK (2015).