Mandy ‘Melissa’ Jane Wittens

Mandy ‘Melissa’ Jane Wittens currently focuses on enhancing trustworthiness and transparency in the handling and utilization of data for its secondary use within health data spaces. Recognizing the critical role that data quality and integrity play in patient care and clinical decision-making, her work aims to implement measures that align with ethical and legal requirements, promoting data interoperability, discoverability, and accessibility, with the ultimate goal being the facilitation of secure and high-quality data sharing.

During her doctoral research, she investigated the pathophysiology of Alzheimer’s disease at the Department of Clinical Neurology in UZ Brussels. Her focus has been on utilizing imaging techniques and fluid biomarkers to improve the early diagnosis and prognosis thereof. Additionally, she has actively contributed to the development of a pre-analytical and mass spectrometry protocol intended for differentiating between various subtypes of cardiac amyloidosis, aiming towards implementation in clinical practice.

Prior to her doctoral research, she pursued a master’s degree in biomedical sciences at the University of Antwerp. During this period, her research centered on the isolation and characterization of exosomes for proteomics applications, utilizing innovative differential (ultra)-centrifugation techniques. She also gained valuable experience in clinical trials and statistics through her work as a laboratory scientist at Janssen Pharmaceutica and internships at the Biomedical Informatics Research Network Antwerp.