Maarten van de Klundert

Maarten van de Klundert

Research Specialist
Visiting address: ANA Futura Laboratory, Alfred Nobels väg 8, 14152 Huddninge
Postal address: H7 Medicin, Huddinge, H7 CIM-CID Sönnerborg van de Klundert, 171 77 Stockholm
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About me

  • Maarten received his Ph.D. in 2016 at the University of Amsterdam and worked as a post-doc in the Institute of Virology at the Technical University Munich. His work during his PhD and first postdoc focused on the molecular virology of hepatitis B virus. Maarten joined us in 2021 as post-doc researcher and in January 2023 became a team leader. He has a strong focus on both fundamental and translational research on HIV latency and HIV cure. In addition, he is responsible for the groups strong research line on molecular HIV epidemiology which is based on several national, and international collaborations using various national and international databases, such as the InfCare database, the EuResist and EuCare databases. This research line also involves team member Anna Weibull Wärnberg, MD, of whom Maarten is co-PhD supervisor. Maarten regularly acts as supervisor and as independent examiner of international bachelor and master students. In January 2025 Maarten was elected chair of the KI liver academy steering committee. 

Articles

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Grants

  • Swedish Research Council
    1 December 2025 - 30 November 2028
    There is no cure of HIV infection due to latent intact HIV in cellular reservoirs, mainly in resting CD4+ cells. Several latency reversing agents (LRA) have been identified but no reduction in the reservoirs has been achieved in vivo. We screened a CRISPR-CAS knockout library targeting 2.000 drugable human genes and identified several novel genes maintaining HIV latency including C-terminal Src kinase (CSK). When inhibiting CSK, reactivation of latent HIV was seen in vitro. We will now further investigate the therapeutic potential of novel LRAs using state-of-the-art model systems. Our plan includes i) CRISPR-CAS screening for more druggable targets that reverse latency in GKO reporter virus infected Jurkat and primary human T cells
    ii) identification of novel LRAs aand testing of small molecule inhibitors, including the CSK inhibitor
    iii) testing selected LRAs on primary CD4+ T-cells from patients with suppressive viremia, assessing the reactivation of the replication competent reservoir and iv) in a subset of patients correlate variations in the reactivation potential to the integration sites in eu- or heterochromatin of the proviral HIV DNA. Our novel assays and approaches in HIV latency research will facilitate the identification for novel efficient LRAs and open new pathways towards functional HIV cure.
  • NGS analysis of Lenecapavir resistance in patient samples
    The Swedish Physicians Against AIDS Research Foundation
    1 January 2024

Employments

  • Research Specialist, Department of Medicine, Huddinge, Karolinska Institutet, 2026-
  • Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Medicine, Huddinge, Karolinska Institutet, 2021-2026

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