Thijs started working at Progress in May 2023. He obtained his PhD in virology and immunology at the University of Amsterdam. After completing his post-doctoral research he worked for Eurofins MicroSafe in the role of study manager and department head. There he was responsible for the tech transfer and validation of various quality control methods for the testing of biologicals. After Eurofins he worked at HALIX as a project manager responsible for the tech transfer, development and manufacturing of several antibodies and viral vectors. In 2021 he moved to NecstGen as lead scientist quality control for ATMPs. In this role he was responsible for setting up the quality control department, LIMS implementation, clean room PQ execution and the implementation of microbial and rapid qc methods.