My name is Thibaut Didier J. Delplancke from Kortrijk, Belgium. I started to study chemistry early on during the last two years of high school Sint-Theresia Institute (Kortrijk, Belgium; 2005-2007) and continued by doing a BSc in Chemistry at the Catholique University college Sint-Lievens (Ghent, Belgium; 2007-2010). For my bachelor thesis I went as an Erasmus student to the analytical department at Uppsala University, where I also continued my MSc in analytical chemistry for complex systems (Uppsala, Sweden; 2010-2012).

After my MSc, I completed a PhD study which entailed the study of the maternal hair metabolome and exposome associated to healthy and complicated pregnancies Chongqing Medical University (Chongqing, China; 2014-2017), which included a visiting PhD studentship for 9 months at Liggins Institute (University of Auckland, New Zealand; 2015). Firstly, the purpose of my PhD was to obtain an improved understanding of the metabolic changes during pregnancy by using metabolomics and also to try to observe novel biomarkers for future usage as early diagnosis or even screening purposes for complications. Additionally, looking at specific metabolites related to the exposome if they decrease or increase the risks of developing certain complications during pregnancy. This research field showed me that there is a lot of potential with metabolomics to assist our progress of understanding diseases or disorders at metabolic levels but also by the effects of environmental influences such as urban exposure, alcohol, pesticides, smoking, medication and nutrition.