Nele Brusselaers

Nele Brusselaers

Researcher | Docent
Visiting address: Tomtebodavägen 18A, 8tr, 17177 Stockholm
Postal address: K6 Kvinnors och barns hälsa, K6 Barnonkologi och Barnkirurgi Wester, 171 77 Stockholm
Part of:

About me

  • Nele is a medical doctor and epidemiologist, specialised in clinical- and pharmaco-epidemiology. She is a senior researcher and associate professor, and has worked at Karolinska Institutet since 2012. Nele combines this with a position as Professor in Pharmaco-epidemiology at the Global Health Institute, at the University of Antwerp in Belgium (since end 2020). She has a broad interest and experience in different clinical topics with a main focus on long-term effects of commonly prescribed drugs on long-term health and the microbiome, with a focus on women's health, early life, cancer and infections. She has extensive experience in evidence synthesis methodologies (systematic reviews, meta-analyses etc. ), the Swedish Health Registries and various clinical and microbiome cohorts. 

    Graduated PhD students:
    As main supervisor:

    • Eva Doorakkers (Karolinska Institutet, 2019)
    • Sam Van Slycke (Ghent University, 2020)
    • Robin Willaert (Ghent Universtiy, 2021)
    • Johanna Simin (Karolinska Institutet, 2021)
    • Qing Liu (Karolinska Institutet, 2023)
    • Frank Mulindwa (University of Antwerp, 2024)

    As co-supervisor:

    • John Maret.Ouda (Karolinska Institutet, 2018)
    • Laurent Thierens (Ghent University, 2020)
    • Unnur Gudnadottir (Karolinska Institutet, 2024)

    Awarded research funding as prinicipal investigator:

    • SFO: Strategic Funding in Epidemiology (Karolinska Institutet): Young Scholar Grant(2014)
    • Julin funding(2014)
    • Bengt Ihres Fond (Svenska Läkaresällskapet)(2014, 2017, 2018)
    • KI fonder(2014-2019)
    • Svenska Läkaresällskapet(2015, 2018)
    • KID funding: Karolinska Insitutet delfinansiering för nya doktorander(2015)
    • Shizu Matsurais foundation(2017)
    • Gastroenterolgisk forskningsfond(2017, 2018)
    • Vetenskapsrådet(2020)
    • Vetenskapsrådet(2023)

    Awarded research funding as co-applicant

    • KID funding: Karolinska Insitutet delfinansiering för nya doktorander(2014)
    • SIMSAM (Swedish Initiative for Research on Microdata in the Social and Medical Sciences)(2014-2018)
    • Alzheimerfonden(2018)
    • KI Stifeltsen(2018)
    • Comision Nacional de Investigacion Cientifica y Technolica(CONICYT)(2018) - Romina Fornes - postdoc
    • Kronprinsessan Lovisas Förening För Barnasjukvård /Stifelsen Axel Tielmans(2019)
    • ALF(2020) 

    Awards:

    • Best European Abstract - European Burn Association (EBA- 2009)
    • Investigators award at the Congress of the Belgian Society of Internal Medicine (2010)
    • Best abstract - European Society of Intensive Care Medicine (ESICM – 2010)
    • Best abstract/4th best oral presentation (EBA - 2011)
    • Selected as representative from KI to attend the Global Young Scientist Summit in Singapore (2014)

    Education/Career:

    • Master in Medicine (MD), Ghent University (Belgium), 2008.
    • PhD in Medical Sciences, Thesis: "Severe burn injury: Some determinants of epidemiological and surgical outcomes, Ghent University, Belgium, 2010.
    • Master in Hospital Hygiene and Infection Control, Ghent University, (Belgium), 2010.
    • Master in Epidemiology, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, (United Kingdom), 2015.
    • Docent in Clinical Epidemiology, Karolinska Institutet, 2015.
    • First post-doc: Dept of Internal medicine and Infectious diseases, Ghent, University, Belgium (2010-2012)
    • Second post-doc: Upper-gastrointestinal surgery, Dept of Molecular medicine and Surgery, Karolinska Insitutet (2012-2016)
    • Associate Professor / Senior Researcher  (2016-2024) - Centre for Translational Microbiome Research, Dept. Microbiology, Tumour and Cellbiology, Karolinska Institutet.
    • Associate Professor / Senior Researcher - Dept of Women's and Children's Health,   Karolinska Institutet (2024-current)
     

Research

  • I am the principal investigator of 5 large cohorts:
    - Chemoprevention of cancer cohort (aim: to assess the impact of commonly prescribed drugs on the development of cancer)
    - The Swedish Maternal Microbiome (SweMaMi) project (aim: to assess how the microbiome affects pregnancy outcomes and the health of the offspring) www.swemami.se
    - Medication and the Maternal Microbiome (MediMami) project (aim: to assess the impact of commonly prescribed drugs during pregnancy, through potential microbiome alterations)
    - PCOS (Polycystic Ovary syndrome) project (aim: to assess the effects on health in the offspring of mothers with PCOS)
    - CDI project: /Clostridioides difficile/ infection [CDI], recurrence and mortality in Sweden: risk profiles, prescription drugs and burden.

Teaching

  • Course organiser:
    - How to conduct systematic reviews and meta-analyses (KI PhD course 2790),
    2014-2020
    - Study design in clinical research (KI PhD course 1794), 2013-2015

    Undergraduate and postgraduate teaching at Karolinska Institutet, Antwerp University and Ghent University: including study design, systematic reviews and meta-analyses and other types of evidence syntheses, pharmaco-epidemiology, cancer epidemiology, microbiome-epidemiology and other basic and advanced topics within epidemiology and clinical research.

Articles

All other publications

Grants

  • Swedish Research Council
    1 January 2024 - 31 December 2026
    Our gut microbiome is affected by many factors, including drug use. The first years of life are crucial to establish a healthy, stable gut microbiome, yet infancy is also when most antibiotics are used and many receive gastric acid inhibition. As these drugs are known to disrupt the adult microbiome, the effects in infants could be worse. We will assess how these drugs affect the microbiome and health during early life. First  we will assess the gut microbiome of 3000 babies, born into our large Swedish longitudinal pregnancy microbiome cohort. Second, 400 infants operated during their first days/months of life will be enrolled, of which part receive routine gastric acid inhibition for at least one year. Through repeated stool microbiome collection, questionnaires and registry linkages, we can assess how their microbiome and health are affected and restored. The third and fourth projects are based on the high quality nationwide Swedish registries, to assess how maternal/early life drug use affects the risk of neonatal complications and infections.  In the fifth project, we will assess global antibiotics and gastric acid inhibitors utilisation during infancy (meta-analysis).  With these projects, we want to contribute to the understanding of drug-microbiome interactions in young children, and understand the long-term health consequences. These projects can have direct clinical implications, by contributing to better prescription practices and reducing inappropriate intake.
  • Swedish Research Council
    1 January 2021 - 31 December 2023
  • Swedish Research Council
    1 January 2014 - 31 December 2018

Employments

  • Researcher, Department of Women's and Children's Health, Karolinska Institutet, 2024-

Degrees and Education

  • Docent, Karolinska Institutet, 2015

Supervision

  • Supervision to doctoral degree

    • Hanna Danielsson, The role of early-life events on protein expression and gut microbiome in extreme preterm infants, 2026

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