Gerben obtained his PhD in 2001 and worked as a postdoc on gene expression profiling of rhabdomyosarcoma. After obtaining a NWO Veni grant he moved to Dr. Thomas Rando’s lab at the Stanford School of Medicine to investigate normal and transformed muscle stem cells and study the principles of muscle regeneration. Gerben returned in 2007 to the Netherlands and started working on muscle stem cells at Erasmus MC (Department of Cell Biology) in 2008. In 2012 he joined the Center for Lysosomal and Metabolic diseases applying his expertise to the mechanisms of muscle stem cell-mediated muscle regeneration. His work focuses on designing strategies to promote regeneration of diseased muscle, with a specific focus on Pompe disease. To achieve this, the current work are aimed at understanding disease-specific differences in muscle regeneration capacity and translate these into clinical solutions. In addition, Gerben contributes with his expertise in animal experimentation to the current hematopoietic stem cell-mediated lentiviral gene therapy programs for Pompe disease, Hunter’s disease (MPS-II) and neural Ceroid Lipofuscinoses/Batten’s disease (CLN2).