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Merel Adjobo-Hermans, born in Tegelen on the 22nd of September 1979. I am assistant professor at the department of Biochemistry and affiliated to the Radboud Center for Mitochondrial Medicine (RCMM) and the theme Metabolic disorders.
Where do you live?
I live in Venlo with my daughter Florine.
When you were a kid what did you want to be when you grew up? Can you tell us something about your childhood years?
I wanted to become a biologist and to study the behavior of animals, being inspired by the three amazing primate researchers Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey and Biruté Galdikas. According to my parents, at the age of three it was already clear that I would probably become a biologist since I was obsessed with books about animals and plants.
What was your previous academic training, where did you study and why did you choose that study/those studies?
I found Nijmegen to be too close to home, so I decided to study biology in Wageningen. Here, studying behavior meant studying the behavior of farm animals, which was a bit different from the primates I would have wanted to study in Africa…. Fortunately, during my studies, I fell in love with molecules and with plants and therefore I specialized in both molecular as well as plant biology. As an intern I contributed to the design of a fluorescent sensor for lipid signaling in plants living in symbiosis with Rhizobium bacteria. For my second internship I did go to Africa, to be more precise, I went to Benin. Here I studied plants used in the treatment of malaria.
Which of your research discoveries are you most proud of?
As a graduate student at the University of Amsterdam, I found out that the plant heterotrimeric G protein seems to always be in the active mode and signaling is initiated by inactivating the G protein, in contrast to its mammalian counterparts.
What is your most important scientific challenge in the coming 5 years?
Together with my team, co-PI Werner Koopman, technician Els van de Westerlo and our PhD students, postdocs and collaborators, I strive to significantly contribute to unraveling the pathomechanism of Leigh syndrome, a disorder that is caused by malfunctioning mitochondria.
If you could choose any mentor, who would it be?
Angela Merkel
What is your favorite topic: molecules - patients - population?
Molecules, for the good of patients and as such for the population as a whole.
What should be changed / improved in the scientific community?
I feel that the era of competition should come to an end. There are too many challenges ahead of us, so let’s COLLABORATE!
Is there anything we can wake you up for in the middle of the night?
Only for something beautiful to be seen in the sky, like the Perseids meteor shower in mid-August.
What is the thing that irritates you most?
May I name a few? Large egos, green washing, cheap airplane tickets, ‘flitsbezorgers’, products hidden in many layers of plastic, consumerism… Fortunately, our planet has an enormous amount of pleasures to offer to compensate for all of these irritations. To name a few: budding ferns, bird-chirping weather, the smell of rain on warm earth, the sound of the waves, laundry dried outside, freshly baked bread, the first harvest of strawberries, new flower species popping up in the garden, the change of the seasons…
Who would you like to have dinner with, if you had the chance?
With my father, before he suffered from Alzheimer’s.
How do you relax from the demanding job being a scientist?
Taking long walks in nature, reading good books, listening to music (Habib Koité is one of my favorites), cooking with local ingredients, movie nights with my daughter, drawing and many more.
Do you have a tip for our most junior scientists?
A quote, attributed to Einstein: “Play is the highest form of research”. And next to playing: read a lot of scientific literature, also outside your own field of research.
Please add a photo which represents a remarkable event or experience you were part of. Please explain.
On this photo I am doing an experiment together with children in primary school. We have just fed yeast cells a ‘delicious meal’ and I am adjusting the microscope to enable the children to see what these cells look like. Next to research, this is one of the most enjoyable things there is: having children learn about the wonders of the world we live in through experiments they can perform themselves!
