7 million in grants awarded to Amsterdam UMC researchers

Researchers of Amsterdam UMC have been awarded a TKI-PPP grant between € 300.000 and € 750.000 to perform a research project in collaboration with an industrial party. The funding is provided by the NL government (Ministry of Economic Affairs) through the Rijksdienst voor Ondernemend Nederland (RVO) and the Topconsortium voor Kennis en Innovatie Life Sciences & Health (TKI-LSH, a.k.a. Health-Holland).

Awarded projects

The TKI-PPP grant enables the projects to further develop technologies to find solutions for Crohn’s disease, a sudden out of hospital cardiac arrest, a rare form of heart failure or to rapidly detect Sepsis.

Each grant recipient presents their project in a short video which can be found here.

For a brief overview of all the projects watch the video below.

The awarded projects

Prof. dr. Yigal Pinto – TRACER
Within this project a new technology for patients that have a rare form of heart failure will be developed. It aims to inhibit the disease causing problem by using the naturally occurring variation in the DNA to specifically target the underlying problem. This will enable a more effective delivery of the curative molecules to the heart.
Watch the video of Yigal Pinto

Dr. Patrick Schober – HEART-SAFE
A new technical solution that can automatically detect out of hospital cardiac arrest, using sensor signals from smartwatches that send automatical alerts to emergency medical services.
Watch the video of Patrick Schober

Prof. dr. Wouter de Jonge – Epigenetic Biomarkers for Inflammatory Bowel Diseases
With this project, we aim to contribute to predicting therapy response for Crohn’s disease by using machine learning to identify epigenetic markers that could be used to predict treatment efficacy even before the treatment starts.
Watch the video of Wouter de Jonge

Prof. dr. Tom van der Poll – DETECT-SEPSIS
In this project an early warning system will be developed that is capable of identifying within minutes patients in the emergency room that are at high risk of developing sepsis.
Watch the video of Tom van der Poll

Prof. dr. Elga de Vries – Brain EVs
The goal is to create a new technology platform, to develop drug delivery devices to get across the blood brain barrier into the brain, to fight not only dementia, but a wide range of other neurological disorders and rescue neuronal function.
Watch the video of Elga de Vries-Brain EVs

Prof. dr. Elga de Vries –ProReMiSe
In the ProReMiSe project, the aim is to design and test new compounds that not only reduce inflammation but also restore neuronal function in patients with MS. Thus these newly developed compounds will slow down disease progression, thereby improving the quality of life of patients with MS.
Watch the video of Elga de Vries-ProReMiSe

Dr. Henk-Jan Mutsaerts – SANE-QC
Creating artificial intelligence algorithms that automatically detect the scan quality of MRI scans with the goal to be able to detect MRI scan quality on the fly so that we can directly repeat the MRI scans if necessary. And ultimately, to improve MRI diagnostics overall.
Watch the video of Henk-Jan Mutsaerts

Dr. Johan van Limbergen – BIO-MODEM
Using new dietary therapy, for people with inflammatory bowel disease, we can help control the disease, but maintaining this diet is difficult. In this study, we will use a new heart rate monitor and a dedicated app that will help people track their own stress and recovery and guide dietary therapy to help the individual control their own symptoms better. Moreover this new knowledge will help us improve management for all people affected by inflammatory bowel disease.
Watch the video of Johan van Limbergen

Dr. Joost Raaphorst – CONTRACT
Goal of this project is to improve therapies for treating myositis by creating a model that combines antibodies of patients with a unique set up for the measurements of muscle fibers. This will increase our understanding of the interplay between the immune system, muscle fiber contraction and the effects of targeted immune therapy. In the future we hope to not only help patients with myositis, but also patients with other autoimmune disorders with neuromuscular involvement.
Watch the video of Joost Raaphorst

Dr. Danielle Vugts – Click & Create
This project is about improving cancer drug treatments by visualizing the biological fate of novel and investigate the therapeutic effect of optimized ADCs.
Watch the video of Danielle Vugts

Prof. dr. Rik Schuurman – Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS)
Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) is a very effective therapy in Parkinson’s disease reducing the symptoms tremor, rigidity and slowness of movements. This is achieved by electrical stimulation through electrodes implanted in the brain. Currently, determining the optimal programming of DBS is a laborious process, systematically testing many stimulation settings for clinical effects and side-effects, requiring hours from healthcare professionals and frequent burdensome hospital-visits for the patients. In this project we will simplify the programming of DBS and increase its effectiveness in Parkinson’s disease by building an algorithm to predict individual programming of DBS.