26 July 2019

Nicoline Hoogerbrugge, theme Tumors of the digestive tract, and Michiel Vermeulen, theme Cancer development and immune defense, are elected as new members of the Academia Europaea.


Nicoline Hoogerbrugge is specialised in the recognition, diagnosis and treatment of hereditary cancer and also focusses on the prevention of hereditary cancer in family members. In recent years her aim has been to increase the knowledge of genetic factors of cancer in young people or in people who get cancer several times. Since 2017 she has been leading a European Reference Network into genetic tumour risk syndromes (ERN GENTURIS). This is an intensive European collaborative project recognised by the EU with researchers and medical specialists in the area of hereditary cancer.

Michiel Vermeulen is research director at the RIMLS-FNWI institute. In his research he uses integrative system-biological applications such as next-generation sequencing and mass spectrometry to study gene expression regulation in sickness and health. In 2012 he received an ERC Starting Grant, followed by an ERC Consolidator Grant in 2017 for research into stem cells present in the intestine. For this research he uses ‘mini-intestines’ cultured in vitro, also known as organoids. Michiel Vermeulen’s research group is also part of Oncode Institute, a prestigious virtual national institute that carries out fundamental and applied cancer research. 

The Academia Europaea is a functioning European Academy of Humanities, Letters and Sciences, composed of individual members. Membership is only by invitation after peer group nomination, scrutiny and confirmation as to the scholarship and eminence of the individual in their chosen field. Election is confirmed by the Council of the Academia. Members are drawn from across the whole European continent, not only Western Europe. Members also include European scholars who are resident in other regions of the world. Current membership stands at around 4000. Amongst them are seventy-two Nobel Laureates, several of whom were elected to the Academia before they received the prize.

In addition to Nicoline Hoogerbrugge and Michiel Vermeulen, Bart Jan Kullberg, Bas Bloem, Joost Hoenderop, Bart Kiemeney, Barbara Franke, Guillen Fernandez, Mihai Netea, John Jansen, Jan Smeitink, Carl Figdor, Jos van der Meer, Han Brunner, René Bindels, Han van Krieken, Maroeska Rovers, Nico Verdonschot and Joost Drenth are also members of the Academia Europaea.
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