Marieke Niesters (1984) studied Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC), the Netherlands. She obtained her PhD in 2014 at Leiden University, focusing on endogenous pain modulatory mechanisms in chronic pain. Following her PhD, she completed her training as an anesthesiologist and pain specialist. Since 2018, she has been working as a pain specialist, combining clinical care with translational and clinical research in pain medicine. Marieke currently works at the Erasmus University Medical Center (Erasmus MC) in Rotterdam as a pain specialist and Head of Research within the Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, where she leads and supports research initiatives aimed at improving the understanding and treatment of pain. At CHDR, Marieke works as Research Director Pain. Her research focuses on drug development for the treatment of pain and effective methods to assess analgesic drug effects in both healthy volunteers and patients with chronic pain.