Societal impact

RIMLS public day An amazing success

Saturday October 6, a large number of highly interested visitors (>2000) attended our RIMLS public day. Many researchers from different departments organised a fantastic repertoire of activities for everyone: young and old.

They prepared an active, interesting and diverse program composed of lectures, demonstrations, workshops, guided tours, photo booth etc. The atmosphere was highly stimulating with lots of enthusiasm and curiosity. 

Overall, it was a very successful day, very well received and certainly worth repeating.

The highlights our first public day are witnessed by these photo's. 

A guided tour for the Dutch Kidney Foundation at Radboudumc

The Dutch Kidney foundation (Nierstichting) and the Dutch Patient Organization visited with ~75 people the Radboudumc on Monday 14 May on the occasion of their 50th anniversary.
 
Since 1968, the Nierstichting focuses on kidney patients in the Netherlands. Central goal is to improve the quality of life of kidney patients. They support scientific research into causes, prevention and improved treatment of kidney disease and kidney failure. This year, the Nierstichting celebrates its 50th years anniversary. As part of this celebration, 75 people visited our Radboudumc where they met and discussed with the kidney researchers of the Renal Disorders theme. This research theme organized an informative hands-on day on all kind of kidney research projects performed within our medical center. Employees of the Nierstichting experienced and learned in the morning about sectioning of kidney biopsies, culturing human kidney cells, measuring kidney function in zebrafish and many more.
 
In the afternoon, a guided tour was organized in the anatomical and pathological museum where specific kidney preparations were shown and the newly established dialysis center within our hospital where the ins and outs of various dialysis procedures were discussed. Employees of the Nierstichting expressed their enthusiasm about the day and interacted with many researchers to improve their knowledge on the studied kidney diseases. The Radboudumc Renal Disorders theme would like to thank the Nierstichting for their continuous support to stimulate innovative research and to improve the possibilities in the treatment of kidney patients.


 

CDL obtained new ISO 9001:2015 certification

The facility for research with laboratory animals (CDL) recently obtained the ISO 9001:2015 certification.
The Animal Research Facility (in Dutch: Centraal Dierenlaboratorium, CDL) offers advice and support from planning up to and including the conduct of animal research on behalf of biomedical research and education.
 
During two days (18-19 September) all units of the CDL were inspected by two auditors. Special attention was paid to training of the CDL staff and the investigators, to the role of the Animal Welfare Body and to designing, planning and execution of the animal experiments.
 
No nonconformities were found and thus the CDL obtained the ISO 9001:2015 certification for the next three years.

Why animal research is still neededking for? A documentary on Dutch National TV with contributions from Otto Boerman and Peter Friedl. You can view this documentary here.

Enable Symposium 2018 Post-event video

The ENABLE 2nd European PhD and postdoc symposium, hosted on 7-9 of November in Copenhagen, was a big success. RIMLS participated in this unique event as one of four research institutes (IRB Barcelona, CPR Copenhagen, SEMM Milan) that were awarded a competitive Horizon 2020 grant.
 
It all started with a busy career day including workshops about a variety of topics including science communication, transferable skills and how to move from lab to businesses with your own start-up. Furthermore, career chats with professionals from different disciplines like academia, business and consultancy inspired young scientists and showcased opportunities for future career perspectives. The scientific symposium, entitled ‘The Promise of Future Medicine: From Research to Therapy’, featured 8 exciting keynote lectures. The speakers included Bali Pulendran, a systems vaccinology expert, and Helen Lee, who invented a reliable HIV blood test for resource-poor settings. In addition, young researchers could present their latest work during the symposium through short talks or poster sessions.
 
At the end of the symposium, the winners were announced:

• Fabian Coscia, for his talk entitled “Multi-level proteomics identifies a novel mediator of chemo- sensitivity and immunotherapy target in ovarian cancer”
• Meeli Mullari, for her poster “Mapping RNA-binding protein regions in mammalian brain tissue“
• Fabian Finger for his poster.” Olfactory Food Perception Governs Organismal Proteostasis”

 
Additionally, the general public from Copenhagen got to see more about research by attending the microtalks presented by PhD candidates and postdocs in local bars. Primary and high school children were also invited to the university and experienced to be a scientist by doing experiments. Tense debates were also hosted at the university. Members of the public and expert scientists and journalists came together to discuss the search for scientific truth in the age of information, as well as ethical challenges associated with organ transplantation.
 
We look back to a very successful event and hope to see you all next year during the 3rd European PhD and postdoc symposium of ENABLE.
 
Next year from 13-15 November 2019, ENABLE will be organized in Nijmegen, together with the RIMLS New Frontiers symposium. Therefore, PhD candidates are required to be present. More information will follow in the beginning of next year. But please mark these dates in your calendar!
 

EU ERN eUROGEN New Coordinator

Radboudumc is one of the leading partners in the new European Reference Network eUROGEN. For patients with a rare or complex urogenital disease or condition, eUROGEN is the European Reference Network. eUROGEN is comprised of 3 workstreams; rare uro-recto-genital congenital anomalies; functional urogenital conditions requiring highly specialised surgery and rare urogenital tumours. eUROGEN will improve diagnosis, create more equitable access to high quality treatment and care for patients with rare urogenital diseases and complex conditions needing highly specialised surgery.

Wout Feitz, theme Reconstructive and regenerative medicine, has been appointed as the new coordinator EU ERN eUROGEN. He will coordinate the 29 Hospitals from 11 EU countries and the expansion to all EU member states in 2019, together with the management team in Sheffield.
 
The European reference networks
European Reference Networks (ERNs) are unique and innovative cross-border cooperation platforms that enable specialists to diagnose and treat rare or low prevalence diseases. They aim to provide highly specialized treatment and to concentrate knowledge and resources. ERNs are being set up under the EU Directive on Patients' Rights in Healthcare (2011/24/EU), which also makes it easier for patients to access information on healthcare and increase their treatment options.
 
There are 24 ERNs involving 25 European countries (including Norway) and more than 300 hospitals with over 900 healthcare units covering all major disease groups. These 24 specialized networks are working on a range of medical issues including bone disorders, childhood cancer and immunodeficiency. The ERN initiative receives support from several EU funding programs, including the Health Programme, the Connecting Europe Facility and Horizon 2020.
 
The European Reference Networks are featured in the Commission's EU Protects campaign which aims to raise awareness of the ways in which the EU combats global challenges to protect its citizens. Watch here a moving video about the ERN for rare epilepsies which explains what the ERNs do.

MMD Master program Top rated

The research master program "Molecular Mechanisms of disease” of our institute was awarded top program status. In total, nine Master’s programs at the Radboud University have been named the best in their field by the 2018 edition of the Dutch Master’s program information guide Keuzegids Masters 2018.

We congratulate the team led by Roland Brock with this recurring success of the MMD program.

Assessment criteria
The Keuzegids bases its assessment on criteria such as the contact with teachers, the coherency of the curricula and the quality of the academic facilities. Eighty percent of the assessment is based on student feedback and twenty percent is based on the appraisal by the NVAO, the national inspectorate for higher education.
 
If you want to know more about all the master's programs at the Radboud University please check out this link.