Meet our new student assistants

At the Animal Welfare Body and the 3Rs Centre Utrecht, we are glad to announce the arrival of our two new studentassistents, Ruben van de Poppe and Solène Feyzi. They introduce themselves below.

Hi, my name is Solène Feyzi. I am a first-year master student in Drug innovation at Utrecht University. I am happy and excited to be part of the Animal welfare body/3Rs Centre team as a student assistant. Throughout my 3-year Bachelor in Biomedical Sciences I witnessed the recurring use of animal or animal-derived compound in research sometimes exceeding necessary levels or utilizing outdated approaches. Therefore, I was particularly attracted by the goal of the 3Rs Centre to promote ethical and thoughtful use of animals in scientific research while supporting the development of alternative methods. My role in the team is to aid in the expansion of the publicly accessible FCS-free database and assist in the design of a searchable database containing the latest information on cell culture media and supplements as alternative to FCS. I am also supporting the communication between companies offering innovative FCS-free medium and the 3RCU.

Beside work and my courses, I always look forward to spend quality time with my family and friends. You can also find me in my free time by the side of my piano trying to learn and get a glimpse of the music made by the greatest- Debussy, Chopin, Bach to name a few.

Hi everyone, my name is Ruben van de Poppe and I just started my job as a student assistant at the Animal Welfare Body/3Rs Centre Utrecht. In 2022, I obtained my bachelor degree in biomedical sciences . Currently, I am doing the Science Education and Communication master at the Utrecht University. I’m excited to combine my background in biomedical research from my bachelor with the Science Communication knowledge and skills I developed during my master. I will support the 3RCU team with internal- and external communication tasks and support the organization of a conference. The mission of the 3RCU, to reduce the use of laboratory animals in research and education, is something that I am really passionate about. With my job at 3RCU, I hope to contribute to this mission and reduce the animal suffering in research and education.

When I’m not working, studying or socializing, I like ride my bicycle (so Dutch 😊). During winter, I unfortunately will have to plan some indoor workouts as well. A few years ago, I picked up a guitar. Since then I like to play music I pick up on Spotify (that is not too complicated).