Sabine Spijker

Sabine Spijker is a Dutch neuroscientist. She is Full Professor and Team Leader at Molecular and Cellular Neurobiology (MCN) department of the Center for Neurogenomics and Cognitive Research (CNCR) at the VU University Amsterdam. Her research group, Animal Models of Psychiatric Disease, focuses on how neuropsychiatric ailments, such as depression, addiction, and impulsivity affect cognition.

Spijker obtained a Master of Science in Molecular Neurobiology at the VU University Amsterdam in 1994. Subsequently, she obtained her PhD in Neuroscience there in 1999. She did her post-doctoral training at the Institut de Génétique et de Biologie Moléculaire et Cellulaire in Strasbourg (European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO) Long-Term Fellowship, Marie Curie) and at the VU University Amsterdam.

The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) awarded her with a Vici grant to continue her research into the molecular basis of maintained depression. Since 2004, she is a Team leader at the Molecular and Cellular Neurobiology (MCN) department of the Center for Neurogenomics and Cognitive Research (CNCR) at the VU University Amsterdam. In 2006, she became a member of the Animal Welfare committee. She became a Full professor (initiated by the Fenna Diemer Lindeboom program) in 2012. In 2014, she became the program leader of the Amsterdam Neuroscience program ‘Mood, Anxiety and Psychosis’ and Editor-in-Chief of Amsterdam Science, a magazine for outreach of CNCR research.