Tine Hectors

History

Member for

4 years 17 weeks

Professional information

Own research projects

• Characterization of toxicological effects on the energy metabolism after exposure to endocrine disrupting compounds

Position in the lab

PhD student

Curriculum Vitae

I studied Biology (master discipline Physiology and Biochemistry) at the University of Antwerp from 2003-2007. In 2007 I performed my master thesis entitled "Neurotoxicity in Danio rerio: a toxicogenomics approach" at EBT, in which I investigated if zebrafish can be used as a model to study Parkinson's Disease. In these experiments I injected 6-hydroxydopamine (a compound which is known to be toxic for dopaminergic neurons) and after 2 and 4 days I performed microarray analysis on zebrafish brain to elucidate the possible mode of action of 6-hydroxydopamine.
The combination of using the powerfull technique of microarray analysis and lower vertebrates in order to reduce the use of mammals in the investigation of mechanism unraveling of human diseases was a subject that fascinated me and I decided to apply for a FWO fellowship in february 2006. In October 2007 I started my PhD on the subject "Characterization of toxicological effects on the energy metabolism after exposure to endocrine disrupting compounds". In this project, we investigate if environmental pollutants might be involved in the development and/or progression of type 2 diabetes, using in vitro models.

Selected publications

TLM Hectors, C Vanparys, K van der Ven, GA Martens, PG Jorens, LF Van Gaal, A Covaci, W De Coen, and R Blust. (2011) Environmental pollutants and type 2 diabetes: a review of mechanisms that can disrupt beta-cell function. Diabetologia. Accepted.

Selected presentations

VII World Congress on Alternatives & Animal Use in the Life Sciences; Rome, Italy; 31/08/2009-03/09/2009. Oral presentation: Characterization of toxicological effects on the energy metabolism after exposure to endocrine disrupting compounds

15th Congress on Alternatives to Animal Testing; Linz, Austria; 02/09/2010-04/09/2010; ESTIV/EUSAAT. Oral presentation: Evaluation of in vitro models for investigation of endocrine disruptive effects on insulin metabolism using omics

World Diabetes Congress Dubai 2011; Dubai, UAE; 04/12/2011-08/12/2011; IDF. Invited speaker: Environmental pollutants, insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome

Radio interview for Diabetes Radio: http://bit.ly/ufcdWm

Awards

Joint BELTOX-INVITROM congress: Liver toxicity: from in vitro to man; Edegem, Belgium; 25/09/2009; BELTOX and INVITROM. Poster award: Characterization of toxicological effects on the energy metabolism after exposure to endocrine disrupting compounds: a focus on liver.