Dr. Katja Wolthers is a clinical virologist at the Department of Medical Microbiology of the Amsterdam UMC (location AMC). Together with Prof. Dr. Dasja Pajkrt, she coordinates the OrganoVIR Labs, where researchers, technicians, clinicians, and tissue engineers work together to culture viruses and develop innovative animal-free models for virus research. 

Within MERIT, Dr. Wolthers will supervise DC10, who will investigate the metabolic landscape following EV-B and EV-C infections along the gut-brain axis, using both immunocompetent and primary immunodeficient patient-derived organoids.