Suzanne de Bruijn

337 Appendix ABOUT THE AUTHOR Suzanne de Bruijn was born on the 25 th of May in 1993 in Angeren, the Netherlands. After completing her secondary education at the Over Betuwe College in Bemmel, she started her studies in Molecular Life Sciences at the Radboud University Nijmegen in 2011. Suzanne completed her Bachelor studies with an internship at the Department of Molecular Biology at the Radboud Institute of Molecular Life Sciences (RIMLS) in 2014. Afterwards, she decided to continue her studies and enrolled in the master program of Molecular Life Sciences at the Radboud University, with a specialization in functional genomics. She performed a first master internship at the Department of Experimental Urology (RIMLS) where she investigated the role of the androgen receptor in the development of bladder cancer. During her studies, Suzanne developed a strong interest in Human Genetics, and therefore decided to visit the Vandenberghe lab for Gene Therapy (dr. Luk Vandenberghe) at Harvard Medical School (Boston, USA) for her second research internship. During this time, she investigated the development of a genetic therapy strategy for Usher syndrome type IIa. Suzanne returned to Nijmegen in September 2016, and graduated with the honor “ cum laude ”early 2017. In March 2017, Suzanne started as a PhD candidate at the Department of Human Genetics at the Radboudumc in Nijmegen. Under the supervision of prof. dr. Hannie Kremer, prof. dr. Frans Cremers, dr. Susanne Roosing and dr. Erik de Vrieze, she investigated the missing heritability in the sensory disorders hearing loss and retinal dystrophies. The work performed as part of this PhD project is described in this thesis and has led to several publications in international scientific journals. Suzanne received several prices for her work, including the Don Henderson award at the annual Association for Research in Otolaryngology (ARO) meeting in 2020, and she was invited to speak at the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) meeting in 2021. In June 2021, Suzanne started as a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Human Genetics and will continue her research into the involvement of non-coding variants in the development of retinal disease.