Melanie received her bachelor’s degree from Amsterdam University College, where she majored in biomedical sciences. She is currently finishing up her masters in Biomedical Sciences at the University of Amsterdam in addition to following a masters in Philosophy: Bioethics and Health at the Vrije Universiteit van Amsterdam, for which she is doing an internship at the Rathenau Institute. In her studies, she mainly focusses on new developments and innovations within medical biotechnology, the scientific as well as ethical and social aspects. She enjoys doing research on the interface of science and society. For example, she recently wrote a thesis about the generation of egg and sperm cells from stem cells in the lab and the ethical implications of this.
Melanie is currently doing an internship at the Rathenau Institute where she is involved in the Synthetic Cell project, focusing on the ethical and societal questions that arise in the development of this technology.