Tanya van Emmerik graduated from the Hogeschool Utrecht (HU) in 2023 with a Bachelor of Life Sciences (HLO). During this bachelor she followed the specialization zoology but found herself more interested in animal replacements. Therefore she pursued with a minor on Innovation in Laboratory Animal (-free) Models (ILAFM) and finished this bachelor with a one year internship focused on replacing FBS in cell culture.

After her graduation she worked for 2 years at Meatable in the cell line development team as a cell culture technician where she worked on making new cell lines to create meat without harming animals.

Currently she contributes to the transition project Osteoarthritis & Rheumatoid Arthritis of the Ombion CPBT project, a National Growth Fund focusing on accelerating the transition to animal-free biomedical innovations, as a research technician.