Marka Van Blitterswijk

Marka van Blitterswijk, M.D., Ph.D., is an Associate Professor and Associate Consultant II in the Department of Neuroscience at Mayo Clinic (Jacksonville, Florida, USA). She obtained her M.D. degree at the University Medical Center Utrecht (Utrecht, the Netherlands) in 2008. After graduation, she worked at Harvard Medical School (Boston, Massachusetts, USA) and the University of Massachusetts Medical School (Worcester, Massachusetts, USA) as a Fulbright fellow; she investigated sporadic and familial forms of a debilitating neurodegenerative disease called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). In 2012, she completed her Ph.D. program at the University of Utrecht (Utrecht, the Netherlands), concentrating on the genetic causes of familial ALS. To expand her expertise, she pursued an M.S. degree in Bioinformatics at Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, Maryland, USA), which she completed in 2019. Dr. Van Blitterswijk joined the Mayo Clinic in 2012, where she currently has her own laboratory. Her research focuses on the discovery of novel genes, disease modifiers, biomarkers, and therapeutic targets for ALS and related disorders. She leverages innovative patient-oriented strategies, integrating neurogenetics, bioinformatics, and clinical sciences. She has broad experience using various genetic/genomic technologies and analyses, such as long-read sequencing. Dr. Van Blitterswijk has published over 75 scientific articles and her research is funded by numerous federal and foundation grants. Notably, she won the 9th International Medicine Paulo Gontijo (PG) Award for her contributions to the ALS field.