Members

Founding members

  • Dr. Christel Nielsen , University Lund Sweden, epidemiologist:
    "My research is driven by a simple question: how do the choices we make in everyday life shape our long-term health, often in ways we do not yet fully understand? Tattoos are a striking example - deeply personal, widely accepted, and increasingly common, yet still surrounded by scientific uncertainty.

    Tattoos represent the intersection between culture, identity, and biology. What we choose to place in our skin does not stay confined there; it becomes part of our bodies for life. This raises important questions, not only about individual safety, but about population health when millions of people are exposed.

    My interest lies in bringing clarity to this space: to understand how tattoos interact with the body, and what this means for long-term health.

    Within the Healthy Tattoo Consortium, I aim to help build a knowledge base that supports both individual choice and safer practices - so that tattoos can remain a form of expression that does not come with unintended consequence." 

  • Prof. Jon Laman , UMCG, immunologist:
    "As an immunologist, I have a longstanding interest in lymph node drainage. How do pathogens and viruses reach the lymph nodes that drain the skin, the brain, and the gut? The lymph node (of which we have hundreds) is the essential meeting place where T and B lymphocytes are activated by presentation of pathogen fragments (antigens). Only when the lymphocyte with the correct specificity meets an antigen presenting cell with the corresponding small part of the pathogen, a protective immune response develops. A playful metaphor for the function of the lymph node is a singles bar, where only a meeting of complementary minds leads to a meaningful outcome.

    Hence, my interest in tattoos is based on mechanistic questions how large and very small particles of tattoo pigments reach the lymph node and affect its function. Immune cells literally eat (phagocytose) particles such as tattoo pigments, but they cannot digest them. What are the functional outcomes of this frustrated phagocytosis for a person with a tattoo? Is it neutral, positive (better immune response), or even dangerous (inflammation, promotion of cancer types)?

    These large questions are being addressed by our Healthy Tattoo Consortium, with the ultimate goal to promote tattoos that are medically safe.

  • Prof. Thomas Rustemeyer  , Amsterdam UMC, dermatologist, head Tattoo Clinic:
    "My research focuses on the interaction between the skin, the immune system, and environmental exposures. As a dermatologist and immunologist, I have a longstanding interest in how foreign substances can trigger allergic and inflammatory responses in the skin.

    Tattoos provide a fascinating model to study these interactions. Tattoo pigments remain in the body for life and continuously interact with immune cells, yet many questions about their long-term biological effects remain unanswered. Why do some tattoos stay problem-free while others induce allergy or chronic inflammation? How do pigments influence the immune system beyond the skin?

    Within the Healthy Tattoo Consortium, I seek to better understand these mechanisms and help generate the scientific evidence needed to ensure that tattoos remain a safe form of personal expression."

  • Prof. Roxana Carare , Southampton UK, neuroanatomist:
    Roxana Carare qualified in Medicine in Bucharest in 1994. During her basic clinical training, she became fascinated by anatomy and completed her PhD in neuropathology in 2006, in the University of Southampton, UK. The main international recognition for Roxana Carare has come from the interdisciplinary research she leads, relevant to the causes and new treatments for Alzheimer's disease, with over 165 peer reviewed publications in the field. She led the discovery of the intramural periarterial drainage system for proteins and fluid from the brain that fails in ageing leading to Alzheimer’s disease and her group now focusses on harnessing this system for efficient therapies and early biomarkers for age related neurodegenerative diseases.

    Roxana is a member of the UK Medical Research Council Dementia Platform UK Vascular Experimental Medicine committee and the UK government advisory committee for the effects of pollution on the brain, has served as the only European member of the American NIH strategy committee for funding in dementia. Roxana has won prestigious awards, including a Dementia Research Leader award from Alzheimer’s Society UK. Roxana has served as Co-Chair for The International Alliance of Women Alzheimer's Researchers in Alzheimer’s Association, she is Chair of the Vascular Professional Interest Area of Alzheimer’s Association, co-led the Scientific Committee for Vas-Cog, Secretary of the British Neuropathological Society, member of the scientific committee of the Rainwater Foundation, serves as an expert for several international research funding boards.

    Roxana is a Visiting Professor in the University of Medicine, Pharmacy, Science and Technology Targu Mures- Romania where she has co-founded the British-Romanian Academic Institute of Neuroscience and most recently was successful in setting up the Romanian National Centre of Excellence of Neuroscience NeuRoX.

Associate members

Clinical members