People
Alpe d’HuZes: Over 8000 Dutch people participate in superhuman cycling event to conquer cancer
In the fight against cancer, both patients and their loved ones feel a huge sense of helplessness. Alpe d'HuZes was created with the aim of empowering people to convert this sense of powerlessness into one of strength. Therefore, Alpe d’HuZes leads an ever-growing number of people to cycle up the notorious Tour de France mountain Alpe d’Huez six times in one day. Alpe d'HuZes is founded on the absolute belief that you can attain the greatest possible satisfaction if you put your heart and soul into helping others.
In 2012, 8,000 Alpe d’HuZes participants raised a record amount of 32 million euro. The money will be spent in helping and inspiring others to lead a happy and healthy life with cancer as much as possible. The money is managed by a dedicated research fund of the Dutch Cancer Society.
Source: Opgevenisgeenoptie.nl & Image: fototeam Alpe d'HuZes
Dutch researchers win new ‘Breakthrough Prize’ in Life Sciences
Two prominent Dutch researchers, Hans Clevers and Titia de Lange, won the first Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences. The prize of US$3 million each is founded by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs Art Levinson, Sergey Brin, Anne Wojcicki, Mark Zuckerberg, Priscilla Chan, and Russian investor Yuri Milner to recognize excellence in research aimed at curing intractable diseases and extending human life.
Young, bright and entrepreneurial;
The Netherlands also brings forth a new generation of talented researchers with an eye for business. Listen to the stories of Wouter de Laat and Cristianne Rijcken.
Prof Hans Clevers: Professor of Molecular Genetics at Hubrecht Institute and president of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, won the prize for his groundbreaking work in stem cell research and cancer.
Photo: Henk Thomas
Prof Titia de Lange: Head of the Laboratory of Cell Biology and Genetics, and Director of the Anderson Center for Cancer Research at the Rockefeller University, won the prize for her research on telomeres, illuminating how they protect chromosome ends and their role in genome instability in cancer.
Photo: Jussi Puikkonen/KNAW
Prof Wouter de Laat: Groupleader at the Hubrecht Institute and CEO of Cergentis. Cergentis aims to provide services and kits that enable the cost-effective complete sequencing of clinically relevant genes.
Dr Cristianne Rijcken: CEO of Cristal Delivery. Cristal Delivery is developing a platform of novel nanomedicines based on a proprietary polymeric technology with the aim of optimizing the therapeutic performance of drugs and thereby improving patient care.
LifeLines: 165.000 Dutch citizens united to boost healthy ageing
Healthy ageing is one of our era’s main challenges. Lifelines aims to achieve major scientific breakthroughs to add healthy years to the human lifespan. LifeLines is one of the most valuable public, multidimensional cohort studies and biobanks in the world.
Commencing in 2006, 165,000 individuals will be followed-up for 30 years with a focus on three generations. It covers information on lifestyle, diet, (epi)genetics, psychological and social factors, as well as data on healthcare use to cover societal impact. Due to this scope, the large amount of participants and the long follow-up time, LifeLines forms a pivotal base for important breakthroughs in the screening, prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of (chronic) diseases as well as in the understanding of the etiology of disease. The infrastructure enables large-scale, epidemiological studies in a broad range of multifactorial diseases. Any researcher who is interested in utilizing the research infrastructure, data and biomaterials of LifeLines may apply for access by means of a proposal.
LifeLines is supported the Dutch Government, the Netherlands Organization of Scientific Research, the Northern Netherlands Collaboration of Provinces (SNN), the Northern Provinces, the Groningen University Medical Centre, European 7th Framework Programme, the University of Groningen, the Dutch Kidney Foundation and Dutch Diabetes Research Foundation.
Source: Lifelines
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