Call for Papers: & Posters, AMS Annual Meeting, March 13, 2019
Join the 4th AMS Annual Research Meeting at KIT Royal Tropical Institute Amsterdam with an interesting program! As in the previous years there will be a prize of €1,000 for the most Outstanding Paper published in the previous year, and there will be a prize of €500 for the Best Poster Award. Both prizes are open to MA-students and PhD candidate members of AMS. Submission deadline for both prizes is February 1, 2020. The rules governing both awards can be found on the AMS website. NOTE: As of this year, the organization will apply for accreditation for medical specialists, we will keep you posted.
! AMS Annual Meeting, Call for Workshops! All AMS researchers are cordially invited to submit proposals for workshops. Click for the guidelines, including the points of departure.Please submit your proposal by mail, taking the deadline of December 1, 2019. Looking forward to hearing from you!
New Programs AMS
The research within AMS is from November officially organized in five programs Sports, Musculoskeletal Health, Tissue Function & Regeneration, Ageing & Vitality and Rehabilitation & Development. The classification is better in line with expert- and knowledge centers and creates the conditions for a stronger connection with researchers. In this way, the objects of the institute, meaningful movement in health and disease, maintaining, restoring, preventing and developing, will be better achieved. More information.
News
Anna Prize for Paul Kuijer
The biennial Anna Prize of Anna Fonds|NOREF was awarded on October 18 during the Autumn Congress of the Dutch Orthopaedic Association (NOV). The winner isDr.Paul Kuijer, movement specialist at the Coronel Institute for Work and Health of Amsterdam UMC. His research, carried out in collaboration with Prof. Dr.Gino Kerkhoffs and colleagues from the Orthopaedics departments in nine surrounding hospitals, shows that tailor-made care is needed in order to be able to work again after an orthopaedic operation, just like in top-level sports. In 2025, musculoskeletal disorders cause the largest work-related burden of disease in the Netherlands (Source: Arbobalans 2016). Osteoarthritis of the knee is the most important of these, and unfortunately there is no cure. Eventually, tens of thousands of patients will have a knee replacement; a successful operation to reduce pain in the case of osteoarthritis of the knee. Unfortunately, 3 out of 10 patients do not go back to work after the operation. Targeted advice, multidisciplinary cooperation and work-oriented care after discharge from the hospital could make a significant contribution to the resumption of work. This is important for the Netherlands in the coming years.
Best Pecha Kucha Prize for Roel Weijer Roel Weijer was awarded the Pecha Kucha Prize for his presentation Do falls tend to precede or follow changes in self-efficacy of fall and gait related abilities in healthy community-dwelling older adults in the field of Ageing & Morbidity.Many older adults fall and these falls can not only lead to physical injury but can also decrease self-efficacy, i.e. a person’s believe in their physical abilities. However, low self-efficacy is also often used to predict future falls. In our study we aimed to find out which of these two, falls or self-efficacy, is the leading factor in what seems to be vicious circle. Each month, we contacted 178 older adults without a history of falling, asked them if they had fallen and let them fill out a questionnaire on self-efficacy. We found that falls predicted changes in self-efficacy but self-efficacy did not predict future falls. These findings are in contrast to studies that found self-efficacy to be predictive of future falls. One reason could be that our population consisted of mostly healthy and fit older adults whose physical strength and agility may have been able to compensate for the increased fall risk due to low self-efficacy.
Grant Opportunities
New Call IMDI ZONMW
The IMDI call (Innovative Medical Devices Initiative) focuses on keeping healthcare humane and affordable. The aim of this grant is to challenge researchers and users to bring about new insights and unexpected breakthroughs in the field of medical technology, which in time will contribute to the IMDI objectives. In order to support the deployment of healthcare personnel and to reduce the demand for healthcare, it is important to develop new IMDI technology, particularly aimed at applications in the living environment. It is also important to ensure that the results of previous research are actually applied as soon as possible. IMDI is therefore issuing two calls. In the first call, IMDI asks to come up with new ideas for technological solutions that contribute to the IMDI objectives. In the second call, IMDI offers the opportunity to bring promising innovations a number of steps further in the innovation chain. In this way, research results from thorough research can be brought to social and economic return. The grant that can be applied for per project is a maximum of €125,000 and is a maximum of 90% of the total project size. The deadline for the mandatory letter of intent is November 21 2019, the deadline for the full application is December 5 2019. More information. If you have any questions, please contact Arjen Bergsma.
Career Development Fellowships National Technology Centre and Gateway Programs
Enterprise Ireland announces the launch of a new Marie Skłodowska-Curie COFUND aiming to award 50 prestigious Fellowships through two open calls for proposals in 2019 and 2020. This career development programme is underpinned by triple “I”: International mobility, Intersectoral exposure and Interdisciplinarity. Fellows will be hired by the host institution for three years, including a mandatory secondment to industry for up to 12 months. Each Fellow will be assigned an Academic Mentor and a Secondment Mentor in the research project, training and career progression and will further benefit from exposure to the ongoing research collaboration in the associated Technology Centre / Technology Gateway. For more information.
Veni Grant Writing Workshop
For the Veni candidates in the NWO domain Science and in the domain Applied and Engineering Sciences the grant writing workshop will be organized by the Grant Desks VU/VUmc November 11 or November 14 from 09.45 until 15.00. Please choose one of these dates and send in an abstract of the proposed project and a recent CV before 09.00 o’clock in the morning on the 4th of November. Using this as an input there will be performed a feasibility assessment, which will give you an idea about your chances to succeed. .The advisory sessions for Veni candidates in the Science and in the Applied and Engineering Sciences domains will be organized in the middle of December. An update on the timing of these advisory sessions will be forwarded as soon as possible.
Scientific Meetings
Foot & Ankle Biomechanics Meeting, Sao Paolo 2020
Save the date: Foot & Ankle Symposium, April 5 - 8 2020, organized by the i-FAB Committee and the University of São Paulo – USP. The program will be multidisciplinary and full of presentations from international guests and invited speakers. The focus of the presentations will be subjects related to Footwear / Orthotics, Sports, Physiotherapy / Rehabilitation, Clinical Biomechanics, Ankle and Foot Modeling, Orthopedics and Surgery. All professionals and students who are directly or indirectly involved in the topics are welcome to participate to contribute to the depth of discussions during the event. Deadline call for abstracts: November 10, 2019. Information. Register.
Sport Data Challenge
Are you interested in all the incredible ways sport data can be used? Do you want to help people run faster and run smarter? Or are you interested in the small details that have the biggest impact on competition day? Join the first Sport Data Challenge to show off your data skills organized by the Amsterdam Institute of Sport Science. More information Date: 15th November 2019, 12.30. Register
Symposium Animal-Free Innovations in Science
On November 25, VU and Amsterdam UMC organize a symposium on Animal-Free Innovations in Science. The goal is to bring together scientists from different disciplines from the University of Amsterdam and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in an open and constructive setting to discuss the challenges and advantages in encouraging animal-free innovations in basic and translational research.
12.00: Lunch
13.00: Opening Prof. Dr. Vinod Subramanian: rector magnificus Vrije Universiteit;
Dr Reyk Horland, Berlin, Multi-Organ-Chip technology: current status and future potential;
Prof. Dr. Paul Jennings, VU Why we use animals as models for humans; why we might not need to in the future;
Prof. Dr. Sue Gibbs, Amsterdam UMC / ACTA Animal free innovations with examples from skin and mucosa;
Dr. Vivi Heine, Amsterdam UMC / VU Human stem cell models of brain disorders;
Prof. dr. Bas Teusink,, VU, Getting more out of your data with systems biology;
Dr. Pavlina Konstantinova, uniQure N.V. AmsterdamTowards gene therapy usingorganoids;
Prof. Dr. Jolanda van der Velden, Amsterdam UMC State-of-the-art in modelling the healthy and failing heart in a dish;
Dr. Dasja Pajkrt, Amsterdam UMC, Human organoid technology focusing on ethical aspects, dissemination strategies and business opportunities
Panel discussion
17.20 : Drinks
Lecture by dr. Ben Blaauw: Skeletal muscle mTORC1 regulates neuromuscular junction stability
Skeletal muscle is a plastic tissue which can adapt to different stimuli. It is well established that Mammalian Target of Rapamycin Complex 1 (mTORC1) signaling is a key modulator in mediating increases in skeletal muscle mass and function. However, the role of mTORC1 signaling in adult skeletal muscle homeostasis is still not well defined. In this lecture dr. Ben Blaauw, Associate professor - University of Padua, Italy, will explain that mTOR signaling in skeletal muscle fibers is critical for maintaining proper fiber innervation, preserving the NMJ structure in both the muscle fiber and the motor neuron. Date: October 29, 2019, Time: 16.00, Room: VU Main Building, HG 8A33.
New Members
Chantal Hulshof
My name is Chantal Hulshof and I recently started to work on the PhD project “DIALOAD” at the rehabilitation department of Amsterdam UMC, location AMC. The project is entitled Biomechanical, activity and adherence profiles of people with diabetes in a comprehensive load-capacity model of foot ulceration: towards personalised interventions for high-risk diabetes patients. My daily supervisors are Sicco Bus and Jaap van Netten. The project is partly funded by AMS, Human Movement Sciences (VU) and Ziekenhuisgroep Twente. In 2016 I obtained my bachelor’s degree in Medicine and last September my master’s degree in Human Movement Sciences. Beside my work I like to play volleyball, (board) games and to eat or drink in the company of my friends. If you have any questions please contact me via e-mail.
Dennis van Erck In April 2019 I started my PhD project at Amsterdam UMC, location AMC and I would like to introduce myself and my project. In January 2018 I obtained a master in Human Movement Sciences at VU, with my Master research project about exercise physiology in cycling. The project was a huge success and as a result I was asked to do an internship at Sunweb cycling team, a dream come true for a cyclist and cycling fan. After my internship was done and the paper of my Master research project was published I knew that doing research was the career path I wanted to follow. However the subject was not clear for me, until a vacancy at Amsterdam UMC, location AMC came available wherefore I applied. The project is focused on prevention of functional decline and sarcopenia by patients getting a new aortic valve with a catheter (TAVI). Patient getting TAVI are often frail which leads to insufficient physical activity and protein intake to keep a healthy physical functioning. Therefore the aim of my PhD project is to create an intervention by both increasing physical activity and protein intake to prevent sarcopenia and increase the physical functional of these patients. The project really interested me because it combines two interesting fields: nutrition and exercise. It directly helps people to improve their quality of life. My supervisors are José Henriques, AMC), Wilma Scholte op Reimer (Dean HvA, Movement, Sports and Nutrition), copromotor is Josje Schoufour (senior researcher HVA) Besides the fact that my PhD is way different than my Master Research pPoject, from top sports to frail elderly, I am really happy I made this decision. Hopefully an intervention at AMC for TAVI-patients might help to keep a healthy physical functioning.
Joris Oonk My name is Joris Oonk and I recently joined the Bio Medical Engineering and Physics department at AMC to start my PhD. My reseach focuses on the kinematics of the forearm during pronation and supination using 4D CT. With this data we are going to develop a new patient specific implant for the distal radioulnar joint. Fortunately I will not be doing this on my own. Gustav Strijkers, Geert Streekstra and Iwan Dobbe will be supervising the project. Besides my supervisors, I will be working together with three other companies who have specific knowledge and expertise regarding the project. Funding is provided by a Eurostar grant. Before moving to Amsterdam I lived in the small but busy city of Groningen for 6 years. This is where I finished my bachelors and masters in Bio Medical Engineering with a specialization in medical device design. Here I picked up rowing back in 2016. Since moving to Amsterdam I am involved with the sport by coaching at Skøll. I am really looking forward to the next few years and all the challenges that I will come across during my PhD.
PhD Activities
Talents in PhD
Healthcare professionals experience a high workload. If you want to be more in charge of your PhD trajectory and have more balance and deal with high workloads you could follow a workshop organized by Leading Doctors. It's about using talents and working together, also in hierarchical structures. The project is open for PhD candidates at Amsterdam UMC and VU. Admission is free. More information Date: October, 29. Time: 9.00 - 12.00. Register
How to publish a world-class paper
Publishing your research can be a challenge. What audience do you have in mind, how do you choose a publisher, and how to deal with reviewers and editors. In this seminar, researchers will share their experiences and insights how to publish a high quality manuscript. Each speaker will focus on different aspects of the publishing process. PhD candidates and junior researchers, but also other faculty members and university staff are welcome to attend the workshop. The presentations and discussions are in English. Attendance is free for VU students and staff.This seminar is organized by the VU University Library. Questions or remarks? Please contact seminars.ub@vu.nl. Time: 7 November, 2020, 13.00–16.00. Location: Atrium (Faculty of Medicine, VU). See here for the full program and more information about the speakers. Registration.
In the Spotlight
In the period 2017 – 2018, AMS awarded several (travel) grants to MA-students and PhD candidates who wanted to visit another research group to expand their expertise and gain experience from how research is approached elsewhere. In the coming newsletters we will introduce you to the winners, who have been kind enough to share their story with us.
Marit Zandbergen During my second year of the Research Master Human Movement Sciences (2017-2018), I performed a one year research internship at Amsterdam UMC, location VUmc. I compared the effect of mono- versus multi-segment musculoskeletal models of the foot on simulated triceps surae lengths in various subject groups. Since models of the foot can be quite complex, the idea emerged to visit the developer of one of the foot models I wanted to use in my research. After obtaining both the AMS Innovation Call for students 2017 and the Gerrit-Jan van Ingen Schenau Promising Young Scientist Award 2017, I planned my trip abroad. I visited dr. Julie Stebbins and her group at the Oxford Gait Laboratory (UK) for a 3-month period. During my time in Oxford I learned all the theory behind the Oxford foot model and also how to collect data for this model. I was able to use the patient database of the Oxford Gait Laboratory to test my created musculoskeletal models of the foot on data of 30 children with cerebral palsy and a foot deformity. Additionally, I have had the opportunity to observe orthopaedic surgeon dr. Tim Theologis perform multiple surgeries on deformed feet of children with cerebral palsy. Furthermore, I participated in the weekly interpretation session of gait analyses performed at the Oxford Gait Laboratory. And last but not least, I had a great time in Oxford!
Vera Meekes During my master research project for the master Human Movement Sciences at the department of rehabilitation at the UMC Amsterdam location AMC, we applied for the AMS innovation call 2017 Master student grant. In cooperation with Niels Waterval and Merel Brehm, I received the grant to expand the research on the use of diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) to investigate the effect of neuromuscular diseases on the calf muscles. In clinical practice, neuromuscular disease progression is evaluated using strength measures, which lack sensitivity and are unable to provide information about the underlying muscle pathology. In recent years, DTI and T2 imaging have proven to be sensible, quantitative methods to assess changes in muscle fiber size and water content. However, whether these methods can be used to quantify disease progression in neuromuscular diseases is unknown. Therefore, the aim of our study was to investigate the effect of neuromuscular diseases on muscle tissue in relation to the amount of fat infiltration using DTI, T2 imaging and DIXON scans. Secondly, we studied the relation between MRI variables and maximal muscle torque in patients with neuromuscular diseases. We discovered that in muscles affected by neuromuscular diseases, diffusivity and T2 imaging parameters change before the accumulation of fat, indicating that muscle atrophy and an increase in muscle water content proceed fat infiltration. In addition, the relation of these parameters with muscle strength, indicate their potential use for the assessment of muscle function in neuromuscular diseases. Therefore, DTI and T2 may potentially be used to identify and monitor muscle changes in neuromuscular diseases. The AMS innovation call provided me the opportunity to further develop my research skills and I am very thankful to all researchers that have worked with us on this project.
Upcoming PhD Dissertations
8/11/2019: PhD Graduation Arjen Visscher (Amsterdam UMC, location VUmc): Fecal incontinence, risk factors, impact on quality of life and future treatment strategies | 09:45 | Aula | Main Building | VU Campus;
11/11/2019: PhD Graduation Maarten Prins (FGB): Motor Control of the Trunk During Gait in Low Back Pain.11:45 | Aula | Main Building | VU Campus;
19/11/2019: PhD Graduation Marloes van Gorp (Amsterdam UMC, location VUmc): Health Issues, Activity and Participation of Young Adults with Cerebral Palsy, A long term follow-up study 13:45 Aula | Main Building | VU Campus;
25/11/2019: PhD Graduation Ouren Kuiper (FGB): Driven to the Future: Carsickness in Autonomous Vehicles |11.45 | Aula | Main Building | VU Campus;
26/11/2019: PhD Graduation Irene Maldini (FGB): Can design confront consumerism? | 11.45 | Aula | Main Building | VU Campus;
5/12/2019: PhD Graduation Guido Weide (FGB):Triceps Surae Hyper-resistance; Measurements and Morphological Determinants in Children and Adolescents with Spastic Cerebral Palsy | 09:45. | Aula | Main Building | VU Campus;
6/12/2019: PhD Graduation Christine Rustenburg (Amsterdam UMC, location AMC): Degeneration of the lumbar spine: preclinical concepts for clinical questions | 14.00 | Agnietenkapel | UvA;
9/12/2019: PhD Graduation Bas Fransen (FGB): Improving functional outcome and outcome measures in total knee arthroplasty | 13:45 | Aula | Main Building | VU Campus;
11/12/2019: PhD Graduation Nauzef Mahmood (FGB), Dynamic Support for Trunk and Neck for Persons with Progressive Muscle Weakness related Disorders | 15.45| Aula | Main Building | VU Campus;
15/12/2019: PhD Graduation Lotte Lintmeijer (FGB), Power in Rowing: in search of effective feedback variables Aula | Main Building | VU Campus;
16/12/2019: PhD Graduation Ernst Jan Bos (VUmc), Cartilage tissue regeneration for facial reconstruction in burn patients, | 15:45 | Aula | Main Building | VU Campus;
Is your defense missing? Send us your details by mail ams@vu.nl
Events Calendar
29/10/2019: Talents in PhD | Amsterdam: workshop by Leading Doctors;
