Prof. Dr. Sabeth Verpoorte

About Sabeth Verpoorte

E.M.J. (Sabeth) Verpoorte has more than 30 years of research experience in the microfluidics or lab-on-a-chip field. Her introduction to the field came in 1990, when she came from Canada as a postdoctoral researcher in the pioneering lab-on-a-chip group headed by Professor A. Manz at Ciba Ltd., Basel, Switzerland.

In July 1996 she became a team leader in the group of Professor Nico F. de Rooij at the Institute of Microtechnology (IMT), University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland, where her research interests concentrated on microfluidics for (bio)analytical applications.

In 2003, Sabeth made a strategic switch to assume a Chair in the Groningen Research Institute of Pharmacy, making a foray into a new research environment dominated by cells, tissue and drug development.

Ongoing projects involve the development of organ-on-a-chip systems to study drug metabolism (liver chip, gut chip), assess organ interactions (intestine-liver chip) and diagnose endothelial dysfunction.

Efforts have also concentrated on continuous-flow particle separation strategies, paper microfluidics, as well as miniaturized analytical instrumentation (paper spray ionization, multidimensional chromatography).

The acquisition of interdisciplinary projects involving scientists from the life sciences, chemical, and physics disciplines continues to be a driving force in her research. She is or has been involved in several international scientific organizations and journal editorial boards.

About the Groningen Research Institute of Pharmacy (GRIP)

Sabeth Verpoorte is also representing the Groningen Research Institute of Pharmacy (GRIP), which is embedded in the Faculty of Science and Engineering at the University of Groningen.

We are an institute with 8 research units, spanning a spectrum of pharmaceutical science research from medicinal chemistry and bioanalysis to the design, discovery and delivery of new biopharmaceutical drugs.

Our scientists are working hard to unravel the mechanisms which lead to diseases like cancer, asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, understand how enzymes can be engineered to produce medicinal compounds in a “green way”, and design innovative nanomedicines.

New biological models are combined with micro- and nanotechnologies to realize advanced in vitro technologies like organ-on-a-chip to both reduce the use of animals in drug testing and directly probe biological processes in more natural microenvironments.

Researchers in pharmacotherapy seek to better understand how to treat patients using new precision medicine approaches, while our epidemiologists delve into the causes of disease in larger populations. GRIP is a multidisciplinary institute that stands at the forefront of innovation of the pharmaceutical sciences.

We welcome students from around the world to our PhD program!