With my research I aim to improve understanding, prevention and treatment of the high cardiovascular disease (CVD) burden in patients with severe chronic kidney disease (CKD) and those treated with dialysis. In particular, my former and current translational projects focus on the immunometabolic risk factors and mechanisms underlying heart failure in patients with severe CKD and how these can be targeted by novel cardio-kidney-metabolic (CKM) therapies such as sodium-glucose co-transporter 2 inhibitors (SGLT2i).  

This work includes postdoctoral research within the European MSCA-ITN-DN IMPROVE-PD consortium, focused on peritoneal dialysis (PD)-induced inflammatory responses and their relation with CVD in pre-clinical models, as well as clinical research to establish the cardiac effects and cardiovascular benefit of SGLT2i in a large population of patients with severe CKD (steering committee member Renal Lifecycle Trial and project leader of its substudy STOP-HF-in-PD, NCT05374291). Finally, through translational collaboration with fundamental researchers at Cardiovascular Research Institute Maastricht (CARIM) and the AUMC research institutes Amsterdam Cardiovascular Sciences (ACS) and Cancer Center Amsterdam (CCA), I aim to determine the immunometabolic effects of SGLT2i and how these relate to cardiac function and cardiovascular outcome in patients with severe CKD.

cardio-kidney-metabolic (CKM) disease, peritoneal dialysis, hemodialysis, sodium-glucose co-transporter 2 inhibition (SGLT2i), cardiovascular risk management in CKD and kidney failure