On March 16, 2021 dr Tessa Niemeyer-van der Kolk successfully defended her PhD thesis ‘Investigations of skin inflammation with a novel dermatology toolbox for early phase clinical drug development’ at Leiden University!
There is a high need for novel treatments for patients with chronic immune-mediated inflammatory skin diseases. Success rates from phase I to market registration in auto-immune/inflammation treatments are as low as 6.3%, which is primarily related to the lack of clinical information (unknown active dose, unclear regimen, uncertain pharmacological activity) on the drug in the early phases of clinical development. Since the number of therapeutic candidates in clinical development programs is rapidly increasing, new strategies to optimize the development process are needed
The scope of Tessa’s thesis is to support the development of tools and treatments for chronic inflammatory skin diseases, in particular atopic dermatitis (AD), by developing skin inflammation models in healthy volunteers, investigating novel biomarkers and methods for AD studies and exploring effects of novel treatments for AD.
Tessa was supervised by promotor Prof. dr. J. Burggraaf and co-promotores Prof. dr. R. Rissmann and Dr. M.B.A. van Doorn.
