Lotje D De Witte, MD, PhD

Dr. de Witte is a psychiatrist with a background in preclinical research in the fields of virology and immunology. She studied Medicine at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands and performed a Ph.D. at the department of cell biology and immunology at the VU medical center in Amsterdam and a postdoc at the department of virology at the Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, where she was extensively trained in the concepts and techniques involved in immunology, cell biology and virology. She investigated the role of Langerhans cells and other myeloid cell types in viral infections. She set up various cellular models in the lab, including the isolation of primary Langerhans cells. Dr. de Witte graduated cum laude for her Ph.D. and her research projects have been published in high impact journals including Nature Medicine, the Journal of Clinical Investigation, PLOS pathogens and PNAS. 

After graduating cum laude for her M.D., Dr.de Witte decided to specialize in psychiatry. She was not only attracted to this field from a clinical point of view but also devoted to use her experience in immunology to start to unravel how the immune system plays a role in psychotic disorders. In parallel to her residencies in psychiatry, she therefore started her own research group at the Brain Center Rudolf Magnus in Utrecht, the Netherlands. She investigated the prevalence and role of neuronal auto-antibodies and neurotropic pathogens in psychotic disorders. In addition, she set up several human microglia models, including the isolation of these cells from post-mortem brain tissue, generating them from induced pluripotent stems cells and monocytes. This has resulted in a novel and distinctive research line studying the phenotype and function of microglia in psychotic disorders.

Education and Training

2008                   PhD, Department of Molecular Celbiology & Immunology,  VU Medical Center
                           Amsterdam, The Netherlands

2010                   MD,  School of Medicine, VU Medical Center
                           Amsterdam, The Netherlands

2008-2010          Postdoc, Department of Virology, Erasmus MC
                           Rotterdam, The Netherlands

2011-2016          Residency Psychiatry, UMC Utrecht 
                           Utrecht, The Netherlands

2011-2017          Postdoc Translational Neuroscience,
                           Utrecht, The Netherlands

2016-2017          Psychiatrist Department of Psychiatry, University Medical Center
                           Utrecht, The Netherlands

2017-present      Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai,
                           New York, USA