Monique van der Wijst is a molecular biologist who applies novel single-cell technologies to study the interplay between genetic and environmental factors in immune-mediated diseases. In addition, in 2019 and 2023 she received NWO Veni and Vidi grants, respectively, to pursue how (non-genetic) cell-to-cell variability impacts gene expression, its regulation, and the immune response. Moreover, in 2018, she set up the sc-eQTLGen consortium (https://eqtlgen.org/sc), in which, together with a network of 28 participating groups, pipelines have been set up to conduct large-scale single-cell analyses in population genetic datasets. With all these efforts combined, she aims to gain a personalized understanding of gene regulation that can improve precision medicine in the future.