Lucienne Vonk
Lucienne Vonk, PhD, is Chief Scientific Officer at Xintela AB (Sweden) and Senior Researcher at the Department of Orthopaedics, University Medical Center Utrecht (the Netherlands). She received her PhD on tissue engineering of various cartilage tissues in 2010 (Academic Center for Dentistry Amsterdam, VU University, Amsterdam, the Netherlands), whereafter she joined the the University Medical Center Utrecht. From 2019 – 2022 she headed the scientific department at CO.DON AG (Germany).
Her research focuses on biological musculoskeletal tissue regeneration, including cell-based therapies and enhancing clinical therapeutic potential via intercellular communication. She is mainly active in translational research.
She has published numerous scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals and book chapters and has been invited speaker at many national and international meetings. She collaborated in several research consortia and attracted over 3 million Euro funding for her research.
Dr. Vonk is a (co-)recipient of multiple awards, including the Best Basic Science Paper published in Cartilage in 2025, the ON Foundation Orthoregeneration Award (ICRS 2025), the ICRS Young Investigator Award (2016), the ICRS Certificate of Merit and Magna Cum Laude awards (2015, 2013), best basic science research by the Netherlands Orthopedic Association (2026, 2021, 2015), highest ranked and highlighted paper submissions in “arthroscopy and sports medicine” at American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons (AAOS) annual meeting 2016, and the systematic review award by the American Orthopedic Society for Sports Medicine (AOSSM) in 2013.
She participated in the prestigious Steyn Parvé program in the Netherlands in 2018 for female scientific leadership. She was selected as one the best PhD student supervisors of Utrecht University in 2019 and she supervised the Suzanne Hovinga Award winning best Bachelor thesis of Utrecht University in 2020. She was an ICRS basic scientist travelling fellow in 2015.
Dr. Vonk is Co – Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Cartilage & Joint Preservation, was program co-chair for the ICRS World Congress in Vancouver (2019) and has been active in several ICRS committees. She is also co-founder and basic science chair of the German National ICRS cartilage club. From 2011 – 2019, she served as Treasurer in the Executive Board of the Dutch Society for Matrix Biology (NVMB) and was member of the organizing board of Matrix Biology Europe meeting 2014 in Rotterdam.