Claudia Spits

Claudia Spits studied Biology at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona. After obtaining an advanced master’s degree in genetics and cell biology, she joined the Centre for Medical Genetics of the UZ Brussels to pursue a PhD under the supervision of Prof. Liebaers. She competed her dissertation on novel approaches in preimplantation genetic testing in 2006, and was a postdoctoral fellow supported the Research Group Reproduction and Genetics from 2007 until 2014. She is currently assistant professor at the faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, where she teaches on stem cells and genetics. She is the principal investigator of group focusing on understanding how genetic variation determines cell fate in early human development. She has published a total of 60 peer-reviewed publications, that have been over 2600-times cited. Next to publishing, she is strongly involved in the sharing of scientific knowledge through meetings and societies. She has been very active within the European Society for Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE), where she has been deputy and later coordinator of the special interest group Reproduction and Genetics, in the period 2011-2019. She is also co-founder and president of the Belgian Society for Stem Cell Research, steering committee member of the International Stem Cell Initiative and Belgian Representative for the Human Pluripotent Stem Cell Registry. She has been invited a speaker both in international conferences and symposia as well as in talks for the lay public.