Eline Kooi PhD coordinator

As from 1 January, Eline Kooi succeeded Marc van Bilsen as PhD Coordinator of CARIM. We would like to thank Marc for his continuous and inspiring efforts to support and advise more than 500 PhD candidates throughout their PhD track. Marc was very much involved and dedicated to always get the best for his students, and those that have experienced Marc as their advisor have all very much appreciated him. Marc was actually the designer of what we now now as 'PhD-track', a successful CARIM initiative that was adopted by FHML. CARIM is grateful for all of Marc’s efforts, dedication and achievements. Thank you Marc, welcome Eline.

Dutch Heart Foundation Dekker grant Magdi Nagy

The Dutch Heart Foundation has awarded a Dr. E. Dekker postdoc grant of € 280,000 to Dr Magdi Nagy (Dept. of Biochemistry). With this personal research grant for talented scientists, she can conduct research into cardiovascular diseases in the coming years.

Magdi's research focuses on safer medicines for patients who have had a stroke. Many of them are prescribed medicines to prevent blood clots. Blood clots can lead to another cerebral infarction. However, these drugs have a nasty side effect. They can cause bleeding, sometimes even dangerous.

Click here for more information. 

Dutch Heart Foundation grant for atrial fibrillation research

WCN Research Prize Matthijs Cluitmans 

Matthijs Cluitmans (Dept. of Cardiology) received the WCN Research Prize 2022 during the annual WCN congress in Amsterdam. Matthijs pitched his 2021 Science Translational Medicine paper to the jury and an audience of ~200 cardiologists. His team’s work highlights the importance of (concealed) recovery abnormalities in patients who survived 'unexplained' sudden cardiac arrest. By combining noninvasive mapping with experiments and computer models, they improved the understanding of the trigger-substrate interaction leading to these arrhythmias. The full paper was published last year and can be found here: https://www.science.org/stoken/author-tokens/ST-179/full
 
The WCN is the Working Group Cardiological Centers Netherlands, which is an organization that binds all Cardiology centers (academic and peripheral) in this country. The WCN Research Prize is awarded to young scientific researchers, selected by a multi-disciplinary jury, to encourage cardiovascular research.

Kootstra Talent Fellowship Rob Holtackers

Last month, dr. ir. Rob Holtackers (Department of Radiology & Nuclear Medicine) won the Kootstra Talent Fellowship with his proposed study 'lnterventional cardiac MRI: a new strategy for improved diagnostics and treatment of cardiac arrhythmias'. His fellowship will be embedded within CARIM and has a duration of 18 months. The Kootstra Talent Fellowship aims to facilitate talented researchers to develop their own research ideas and CV, and subsequently help increase their chances of obtaining personal grants at external funding agencies.

CARIM researchers successful in ZonMw Open Competition

Three research teams coordinated by CARIM researchers are starting their projects funded with money from the Open Competition of grant provider ZonMw. Each research team will receive €750,000 on average.

AVF failure in renal failure - Prof. Andrew Baker
Worldwide, an estimated 3 million patients with end-stage renal disease are treated with hemodialysis for survival. Hemodialysis requires access to the blood vessels to transport the patient's blood to the dialysis machine. An arteriovenous fistula (AVF), in which an artery is directly connected to a vein, is therefore created surgically, usually in the arm. However, this intervention often fails, posing a huge clinical problem for this patient population. This problem will only increase in the coming years due to an increase in patients with diabetes and end-stage renal disease. Therapies to prevent AVF failure are lacking because it is unclear why the AVF fails. Therefore, Prof. Andrew Baker's team wants to better understand this process and develop therapies for AVF surgery to prevent AVF failure. This will improve the outcomes of AVF surgery.

New therapeutic targets for DCM? - Prof. Erik Biessen & Prof. Stephane Heymans
In the Netherlands, 80,000 people suffer from dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM), a disease that causes life-threatening arrhythmias and heart failure, often at a young age, with major emotional and economic consequences. Less than half of patients respond to current standard treatment. DCM is a heterogeneous disease, in which the hereditary form is characterized by metabolic changes. It is unclear whether these metabolic changes directly lead to fibrosis and inflammation, or indirectly, via certain cell types in the heart, the macrophage, known to control fibrosis, inflammation and heart function. Based on their expertise in macrophage biology, clinical DCM pathophysiology and knowledge of advanced single-cell technology, Prof. Erik Biessen and Prof. Stephane Heymans aim to define new therapeutic targets for treatment of genetic DCM.

Recovery process of the heart after infarction? - Dr Matthijs Blankesteijn
After a heart attack, part of the heart muscle cells are replaced by scar tissue. This scar tissue does not contribute to pump function, which can cause heart failure, a condition with a 5-year survival of only 50 percent. The core idea of the research team, led by Dr Matthijs Blankesteijn, is that the repair process of the heart after an infarction must be adjusted by reducing scarring and giving the heart's natural ability to repair the damage. Recent research in zebrafish shows that their heart has this natural ability to regenerate, preventing scarring. With a team of experts in the field of repair processes and biomaterials, Matthijs wants to develop a material that on the one hand supports the infarct area and thus prevents rupture, and on the other hand releases medicines to stimulate the natural repair process.

ZonMw Open Competition
The ZonMw Open Competition programme is specifically intended for researchers from two or more disciplines who promote excellent team science in a synergistic manner. The applications were therefore tested and ranked on these points on the basis of the criteria of relevance and quality. Because knowledge utilization and participation are also important criteria, all successful applications have a convincing plan for knowledge utilization, with well-considered plans for implementation and broad stakeholder participation. As of 2022, an extra 60 million euros will be structurally available for the Open Competitions of the four domains of NWO, including Medical Research and Healthcare Innovation (Source: ZonMw)

New funding advisor CARIM: Gwynned de Looijer

My name is Gwynned de Looijer and I have recently started as Senior Funding Advisor within the FHML Grants Office, looking after CARIM and M4I. Next to this dedicated research funding support and development work for the school, I will be focusing on ERC and incoming MSCA Fellowship applicants within the wider team of funding advisors. Last year, I was introduced to Maastricht University as Coordinator Research Support Office, after 15 years in the UK at the Universities of Durham, Edinburgh and Newcastle respectively, where I was responsible for EU and International Funding support across all faculties/colleges.

After my first degrees in political science and business management, I felt that university was not for me, only to later return with much enthusiasm as a mature student, resulting in a PhD in Theology and Religion (Dead Sea Scrolls) from Durham University. My monograph ‘The Qumran Paradigm’, which argues for a revisionist approach to the dominant hypotheses of a sect at Qumran, and a wider integration of the various voices found within the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Khirbet Qumran archaeological site, was published in 2015.

At CARIM, I will be a member of the Grants and Incentives Team, and from w/c Jan 9^th, I will also be present on Wednesday mornings (from 9.00-14.00h) in office UNS 50 5.103 to offer advice on grant proposals, answer queries on funder priorities and requirements or just to have a general chat about suitable funding streams for your research ideas. I am very much looking forward to working with all of you and I hope to meet many of you in person in the upcoming months.

Intakeloket Hiring external parties

Roadmaps for scientific integrity and social safety

Integrity is of great importance for the quality and reliability of scientific research. All staff and students must deal responsibly with ethical or social issues that pose a threat to scientific integrity. But what if you make a mistake or suspect others of consciously or unconsciously violating scientific integrity?

The FHML/Maastricht UMC+ Platform for Scientific Integrity (PSI) has launched three roadmaps for scientific integrity and social safety: one for PhD candidates, one for students and one for employees. Each roadmap provides instructions on how to act and who to turn to if you have questions about possible data leaks, scientific integrity, impartiality and social safety. Clicking on the links in the roadmap will take you to the website with more information about the relevant contact person and/or the procedure. Make your voice heard on these issues, and make it negotiable.

UMployee & CARIM

CARIM's telephone accessibility

Paramount Papers

Advanced glycation endproducts in diabetes-related macrovascular complications: focus on methylglyoxal

Diabetes is associated with vascular injury and the onset of macrovascular complications. Advanced glycation endproducts (AGEs) and the AGE precursor methylglyoxal (MGO) have been identified as key players in establishing the relationship between diabetes and vascular injury. While most research has focused on the link between AGEs and vascular injury, less is known about the effects of MGO on vasculature. In this review, we focus on the mechanisms linking AGEs and MGO to the development of atherosclerosis. AGEs and MGO are involved in many stages of atherosclerosis progression. However, more research is needed to determine the exact mechanisms underlying these effects. Nevertheless, AGEs and MGO could represent valid therapeutic targets for the macrovascular complications of diabetes.

Genetic analyses of the electrocardiographic QT interval and its components identify additional loci and pathways

Lectures, symposia & events

Media Moments