ABOUT THE AUTHOR 249 & About the author Aster Victorine Elsemieke Harder was born on the 3rd of November 1989 in Zoetermeer, she grew up in Bavel. She graduated secondary school in Breda (Stedelijk Gymnasium Breda) in 2008.That same year she went to the United Kingdom and followed courses at the English Language Centre in Bristol and St. Clare’s College in Oxford. In 2009 she started her study Biomedical Sciences at Leiden University. In her second year she followed a semester of her studies at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden as part of an Erasmus exchange program. From 2012 she combined her study Biomedical Sciences with studying Medicine. After receiving a Bachelor in Biomedical Science (2012) and a Bachelor in Medicine (2013), Aster continued her education in Leiden. In 2017 she completed both a Master in Biomedical Science and a Master in Medicine. During her Masters Aster did two research internships gaining experience in pre-clinical research. In her first internship Aster worked on ‘Exon skipping’ in Duchenne muscular dystrophy and was supervised by Prof. dr. A. Aartsma-Rus at the Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC). In her second internship she worked on ‘CAG repeat polymorphisms’ in Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease, supervised by dr. A. Aziz. Simultaneously Aster was enrolled in the Leiden Leadership Program from the Leiden University Honours Academy. She did her final clinical internship at the department of Clinical Genetics at the LUMC. After graduation, she started working as a resident at the department of Clinical Genetics at University Medical Centre Utrecht (UMCU) in 2017. In 2018 Aster started her PhD at the department of Neurology and the department of Human Genetics, supervised by Prof. dr. A.M.J.M. van den Maagdenberg, Prof. dr. G.M. Terwindt and Prof. dr. M.D. Ferrari. As part of her PhD she conducted research at Oslo University Hospital under supervision of dr. B.S. Winsvold and Prof. dr. J.A.H. Zwart for which she received a grant from Leiden University Fund. Currently, Aster works as a resident at the department of Clinical Genetics in the LUMC.
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