CARIM Courses - June 2023

This year, the CARIM Courses are scheduled in two weeks: week 1 from 12-16 June and week 2 from 19-23 June.
Please, mark these dates in your agenda already!
 
The CARIM Courses allow you to get acquainted with state-of–the-art technologies and novel concepts in cardiovascular research. Equally important, it allows you to meet fellow-PhDs and CARIM staff. This will help you to generate new ideas, to boost your own research, and to enlarge your network.
 
The topics of the courses of this year are:

• Maastricht Microscopy Meeting on Advanced Optical Microscopy (12-16 June)
• Heart Failure Research (12-16 June)
• Non-invasive Cardiovascular Imaging (19-23 June)

Grant DHF, BHF and DZHK awarded to CARIM researchers

Dr Judith Cosemans, Dr Rory Koenen (Dept of Biochemistry) and Prof. Blanche Schroen (Dept. of Physiology), together with their colleagues from the University of Edinburg and the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich received a grant from the Dutch Heart Foundation together with the British Heart Foundation (BHF) and the DZHK Deutsches Zentrum für Herz-Kreislauf-Forschung e. V. for their MegaCardiocyte project.

In total €5.3 million over four years was awarded to four international teams to discover new ways to treat different types of heart failure, tackle atherosclerosis – the leading cause of heart attacks and strokes – and deep-dive into thousands of proteins to ultimately give doctors even better risk prediction and management tools. The funding builds on the success of three previous rounds of the funders’ partnership, with this round specifically designed to support mid-career researchers.

MegaCardiocyte - Mapping a blood-bone marrow-heart axis to identify new drug targets for heart failure
Heart failure is a debilitating and progressive disease that has no cure and is often fatal. For a particular type of heart failure which arises from an impaired ability of the heart’s chambers to relax between beats, abnormal function of small blood vessels is likely to be an important triggering factor. The MegaCardiocyte consortium will explore the link between small blood vessel function and that type of heart failure. They suspect it might be attributed to malfunctioning blood platelets – normally responsible for clotting – that, together with an overactivation of immune cells in the blood, compromise the ability of small blood vessels in the heart to work normally. The work may lead to the development of platelet-targeted treatments in the prevention and management of heart failure.

The project builds on work that was supported by the CARIM PhD call round of 2019.

Workshop Science Communication

Have you ever wondered why we should communicate about science and what the benefits are for you?
 
You will get the answers to these questions, and more during our science communication workshop.
 
Together with the Marketing & Communication departments of FHML and Maastricht UMC+, CARIM organises a workshop “Science Communication” on Tuesday 28 March from 12.00 – 14.00 hours in the Ballroom, Dept. of Biochemistry (lunch is included).
 
To make the workshop specific for you, it would be nice if you could tell us where the needs are. For example, do you want to know how to translate research into understandable language, how to use social media to share your research, when to seek out the press/how to deal with the press, etc.? Just let us know and we will tailor the workshop accordingly!
 
Please register for the workshop before Monday 13 March by sending an e-mail to CARIM-office@maastrichtuniversity.nl Should you have specific goals regarding science communication please let us know.
 
For our other workshops and events in 2023 please have a look at UMployee CARIM. For the PhD candidates, a workshop will be organised during the CARIM Course Week in June. If you don't participate in the Course Week in JUne, feel free to register for this workshop!

Crowdfunding workshop | How to create a successful campaign?

When: Tuesday 11 April 2023, 12:00-13:00 (Including lunch)
Where: UM | Ballroom Biochemistry | H1.327A

Do you like to explore innovative and alternative ways for funding? And do you want to generate exposure for your research goals and extend your network too? Then, crowdfunding might be a suitable mean to realise your ambition. Since 2019 University Fund Limburg/SWOL has started crowdfunding platform www.umcrowd.nl. By means of this platform UM staff members and students, in cooperation with the Fund, can set up crowdfunding campaigns on behalf of concrete, tangible and societal (research) projects within UM. In the past, several successful CARIM crowdfunding campaigns have been realised, for example the campaigns of Rogier Veltrop and Chahinda Ghossein on cardiovascular disease.

But how can you achieve a successful campaign? And what are important lessons learned from previous campaigns? In this workshop Guido Vanderbroeck, Senior Advisor of the University Fund Limburg/SWOL, will give a general introduction on crowdfunding and tips & tricks to launch a successful campaign.

Please register before 27 March via secretariaat-carim@maastrichtuniversity.nl

CARIM HS-BAFTAs - Deadline 1 May 2023

Early recognition of talent is one of the key strategies of CARIM to coach and prepare gifted young academics for their future academic career. CARIM stimulates and supports talented students and staff by offering grants for research programmes at each step of their career, be it at Bachelor, Master, post graduate, PhD or postdoc level. These grants will be enabled through our ‘Harry Struijker-Boudier award for talented academics’ (HS-BAFTA). The HS-BAFTA programme is intended for three groups of young scientific researchers.
 
1. HS-BAFTA Talented future PhD candidates
2. HS-BAFTA Talented PhD candidates
3. HS-BAFTA Talented postdocs
 
Please click on the category for the calls, procedures and application forms for each category.
Deadline: 1 May 2023

Kootstra Talent Fellowships

1. researchers who obtained their PhD degree at the FHML of Maastricht University within one year of the application deadline, or
2. researchers who are finalizing their PhD at the FHML of Maastricht University.

Hybrid ablation: a team effort with better outcomes

DCVA Steer your Career Training Program

Are you a senior PhD student or early Postdoc? Do you wonder about your next career move?

Young@Heart and DCVA team up with ttopstart to offer you the “DCVA Steer your Career Training Program”. We offer unique one-on-one coaching to give you personalized career advice, teach you how to successful write grants and how to find funding opportunities. You will connect to professionals inside and outside academia to broaden your network and obtain individualized career advice.

The “DCVA Steer your Career Training Program” supports young scientists to take control over their careers! We will select 15 candidates soon, please send in your CV, motivation and support letter to talent@dcvalliance.nl no later than 13 March 2023. Check the DCVA and Young@Heart websites for more information and apply now! 

Maastricht Young Academy career fair for health and life sciences

Are you looking for a new job but have no clue what positions are out there?
Then come join us for this unique initiative organized by the Maastricht Young Academy!
After short pitches on non-academic positions in the university/hospital/industry, you will have the chance to further discuss and network with our speakers. The Staff Career Center will also be present to give professional feedback on CVs.
 
When? 30th March 16:00-19:00 
Where? Greepzaal, 4th floor, MUMC+
 
Programme:
16:00-17:30: pitches about positions
17:30-19:00: possibility to further discuss with our presenters around drinks and nibbles + get feedback on your CV
 
Sign up HERE
 
Registrations for the CV feedback will be done at the beginning of the event on a first come first serve basis.

Organizers: Aurore Lyon, Veerle Melotte, and Berta Cillero-Pastor, on behalf of the Maastricht Young Academy and MERLN.
Feel free to contact a.lyon@maastrichtuniversity.nl if you have any questions.

Open Science Survey

Open science is a movement that focuses on making research more transparent, accessible, and reproducible, and is quickly becoming the norm in the scientific landscape. It encompasses a wide range of practices, from open data sharing to pre-registering study designs, and has the potential to enhance the quality and impact of scientific research greatly.

You are at the forefront of this movement, and your experiences and perspectives are essential to shaping the future of Open Science at FHML/Maastricht UMC+. The survey therefore aims to gather information on your current practices, your views on open science, and the challenges you have faced in implementing open science practices in your work. The team will subsequently use this information to draft the FHML Open Science Action Plan.

Your participation in this survey is greatly appreciated, and our team would like to thank you in advance for taking the time to share your experiences and perspectives. We would like to point out that the survey is completely confidential.

To participate in the survey, simply click on the following link. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Thank you for considering our invitation. We look forward to your participation and are eager to hear about your experiences with Open Science.

Kind regards,

The FHML Open Science Team (Dennie Hebels, Olav Palmen and Merlijn Meens)

Who's new?!

NeuroMind Academy

NeuroMind Academy offers carbon neutral online microlearning aimed at healthcare professionals, both caregivers and scientific staff. It is a service provided by DecisiX, a startup in the Brightlands Maastricht Health Campus, led by Pieter Kubben.
 
The first course modules focus on increasing digital literacy and cover topics such as clinical data science, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. These courses are offered in a graphic style and provide a framework to better understand this increasingly important topic. No prior knowledge of this topic is required.
 
The complete bundle can be completed in 2-3h in total. You can sign up on https://neuromind.academy/bundle/clinical-data-science-essentials .
 
CARIM employees can follow this course bundle free of charge by requesting a coupon code from pieter@decisix.nl . The coupon will waive the course fee allowing permanent access to the full bundle. Do mention your CARIM affiliation explicitly when requesting the coupon and put carim-office@maastrichtuniversity.nl in the cc of your email please.

Paramount Papers

Blood Milieu in Acute Myocardial Infarction Reprograms Human Macrophages for Trauma Repair

Lectures, symposia & events

Media Moments