Roel is an orthopaedic surgeon at the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at the University Medical Center Utrecht, The Netherlands. In 2010, he finished his PhD research (Metal Implants in Treatment of Cartilage Defects), which was awarded by the Dutch Orthopaedic Society with the Mathijsen-award, for the best thesis of the last three years. In 2014, he did a knee fellowship under supervision of prof Daniel Saris. His primary interest is knee surgery. He is working as a knee surgeon at the Mobility Clinic, which is a multidisciplinary clinic, with a special expertise in young patients with complex knee pathology, like large (osteo)chondral defects, severe OA at young age, malalignment and/or multiligament injuries. Besides basic research and animal experiments, he has performed several human trials. His is PI for the strategic theme regenerative medicine at the UMC Utrecht, with a focus on knee joint preserving treatments. He is a member of the ESSKA cartilage committee. He has great experience with treating patients with knee joint distraction and trained numerous surgeons with this technique. He has a long-lasting (>10 years) fruitful research collaboration with the department of rheumatology of the UMC Utrecht.