Biographical Sketch

Rene Spijker is a trained molecular biologist with a specialisation in immunology from Utrecht University and Imperial College London. After research experiences at LUMC in Leiden (Signal transduction of ex-vivoT lymphocyte activation in the treatment of ALL), Hubrecht Institute- Developmental biology & Stem cell research (Differentiation of human Embryonic stem cells towards cardiomyocytes), and AMC in Amsterdam (Apoptosis in Chronic lymphocytic leukaemia) he started his current career as an information Specialist.
Since 2008 Rene works as an information specialist with Cochrane Netherlands and the AMC in Amsterdam. 
He's a member of the Cochrane Council since 2017, and a member of the Cochrane information specialist executive since 2011.

Interests and Focus

Interest are in the field of information retrieval and automation of systematic reviews. To this end he's been a member of the organising committee of #Cochranetech in 2014, CLeF ehealth 2017/2018/2019, and the organising committee of 2018 ICASR (International collaboration of automation of systematic reviews)

Key Publications

• Differentiation of human embryonic stem cells to cardiomyocytes: role of coculture with visceral endoderm-like cells.

  Mummery, C., Ward-van Oostwaard, D., Doevendans, P., Spijker, R., van den Brink, S., Hassink, R., ... & Passier, R. Circulation, 107(21), 2733-2740.

• CLEF 2017 technologically assisted reviews in empirical medicine overview

  Kanoulas, E., Li, D., Azzopardi, L., & Spijker, R. CEUR Workshop Proceedings, (Vol. 1866, pp. 1-29)

• Search Filters for Finding Prognostic and Diagnostic Prediction Studies in Medline to Enhance Systematic Reviews

  Geert-Jan Geersing, Walter Bouwmeester, Peter Zuithoff, Rene Spijker, Mariska Leeflang, Karel Moons PLoS One, 7;2;e32844

• Effectiveness of interventions for diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis in hard-to-reach populations in countries of low and medium tuberculosis incidence: a systematic review

  Heuvelings, C.C., de Vries, S.G., Greve, P.F., Visser, B.J., Bélard, S., Janssen, S., Cremers, A.L., Spijker, R., Shaw, B., Hill, R.A. and Zumla, A The Lancet Infectious Diseases,, 17(5), pp.e144-e158.

• Positron emission tomography (PET) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for assessing tumour resectability in advanced epithelial ovarian, fallopian tube and/or primary peritoneal cancer

  Hoogendam, J.P., Roze, J.F., van de Wetering, F.T., Spijker, R., Verleye, L., Vlayen, J., Veldhuis, W.B., Scholten, R.J. and Zweemer, R.P Cochrane database of systematic reviews, 2017

All Pubmed publications

• Link to all of this author's publications

Related Links

• Cochrane Netherlands

• cochrane council

• ICASR

• CLeF ehealth