Success stories
Georges Janssens, laureate of the talent development grant 2021
"The development of many age-related diseases have been associated to disturbances in metabolism. To uncover possible metabolic changes contributing to (un)healthy aging, I have investigated the muscle metabolome of young and aged individuals of different health levels (athletic, normal, or impaired). The AGEM Talent grant has greatly advanced my career in multiple respects. Firstly, it has allowed me to hire a technician onto my team, whose efforts not only accomplished the goals of the AGEM Talent grant, but also allowed me to expand my collaborations with other groups at the AMC and internationally who would like to measure NAD+ levels. Secondly, Through the techniques developed/used in the AGEM Talent grant by the technician, it has also allowed us to develop a ‘drop-of-blood’ method to measure NAD+ levels, which will be of high value for clinical studies interested not only in NAD+ but other metabolites and how these change over time in patients. Thirdly, the AGEM Talent grant has allowed me to generate data that is the base of subsequent grants. No doubt, this is why I was awarded the Longevity Impetus grant worth 210K US$, which proposed to expand the analyses through lipidomics/metabolomics/RNAseq on the same cohort, after a 1-hour bout of exercise. This has allowed me to keep the technician initially hired by the AGEM Talent grant, still on my team for the extension of another year. Fourthly, the AGEM Talent grant’s main data output is still in development towards a
manuscript, which will be certain to be of high impact. In the one-year duration of the grant, multiple other publications have resulted, including those in the journals Nature Aging, Frontiers in Aging, Ageing Research Reviews, and the journal simply called Aging. All are top journals in the aging field and well respected. More publications are expected to result where the AGEM Talent grant will have played a key role."
Georges Janssens
Joep Grootjans, laureate of the talent development grant 2019
“With the help of the AGEM Talent Development grant we studied the peritoneal immune system in humans using innovative and unbiased techniques including scRNA-sequencing and CyTOF. We discovered that the human peritoneal immune system is a unique immune system with immune cells clustering completely separate from blood immune cells. With this project we have for the first time characterized the immune system in the human peritoneal cavity which is of critical importance for patients with peritoneal involvement of disease. In particular, we have characterized the peritoneal immune system in patients with peritoneal metastasized cancer and aim to find new targets for immunotherapy, to improve survival and quality of life of these patients. Progressing this field that currently lacks innovation will increase the visibility of our research institute, amongst others by presentations on international and national conferences (Digestive Disease Week, UEGW, NVGE) and publication in peer-reviewed journals.
The project has led to strong collaborations with other scientist out of the AGEM institute including the group of Prof. Vermeulen (oncologist, CEMM scientist and oncode investigator) and Dr. Juan Garcia Vallejo, scientific director of the O2 flow cytometry core. These collaborations have led to implementation of new techniques including scRNA-seq and CyTOF, which has also been beneficial for other scientist in AGEM (these techniques have more widely been implemented in AGEM-affiliated research at the Tytgat Institute).
The AGEM talent development grant has been instrumental to further establish my research lines. In particular, it helped me to generate pilot data to apply for additional grants and further establish my research group. The AGEM TDA formed the basis for an additional Cancer Center Amsterdam research grant, a KWF Young Investigator award and the UEG Rising Star 2021 award, and has thus been critical as a talent development grant.”
Joep Grootjans
Jung-Chin Chang, laureate of the talent development grant 2019:
"This grant has allowed me to begin my own research line on the metabolic signaling in macrophages. By genetic and pharmacologic approaches, I investigated the regulation of macrophage immune phenotypes by soluble adenylyl cyclase, a bioenergetic switch that coordinates ATP production of glycolysis and mitochondria. This project also successfully attracted Paulo Veiga Bizerra, a Brazilian exchange PhD candidate supported by CNPq scholarship. Together with Paulo, we expanded my AGEM project to investigate the immunometabolism of Kupffer cells. Looking back, the AGEM Talent Development Grant was the key to develop my research into Kupffer cell immunometabolism in liver diseases."
Jung-Chin Chang
Charlene Diepenbroek, laureate of the talent development grant 2018
“Excessive intake of saturated fat and sugar has increased dramatically and is an important factor in the development of obesity and type 2 diabetes (T2D). The progression to T2D is driven by failure of adequate insulin secretion from pancreatic beta cells to match the increased insulin demand, resulting in hyperglycemia. In addition to glucose, insulin secretion is stimulated by vagal (parasympathetic) nerve activation. However, little is known about vagal innervation of beta cells in the development of T2D, nor whether dietary components affect this vagal-mediated insulin secretion, thus contributing to T2D development. We investigated the effects of saturated fat and/ or sugar intake on pancreatic beta cell function, with focus on the function of vagal stimulated receptors on beta cells.
The AGEM grant enabled me to explore the research field of the brain-pancreas axis in the development of T2D. With assistance of a technician, I could collect more data showing that the consumption of saturated fat and sugar affects the parasympathetic innervation of the rat pancreas. I have also presented this project at the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior 2018, Clearwater, USA and at the Nederlandse Vereniging voor Diabetes onderzoek (NVDO) 2018, Oosterbeek.
Within the research programs of AGEM, major focus lies on obesity and T2D with regard to insulin resistance. However, the pancreas is underrepresented. Being the key player in insulin secretion and subsequently glucose homeostasis, studying the pancreas opens the door to many other avenues for investigation.”
Charlene Diepenbroek
Daniel Miedema, laureate of the talent development grant 2017
“With the first AGEM talent development award, the institute took a leap of faith in me, by granting it to a physicist who was working in medicine for less than two years. In the proposal I suggested to apply mathematical modelling to improve the understanding of the growth and heterogeneity of tumors that develop along the gastrointestinal tract. Tumors consist of billions of cells at the time of detection. Not all malignant cells that comprise a tumor are equal, and the amount of heterogeneity matters. The results of this project demonstrate the relevance of mathematical modelling for oncology research and allowed me to develop an independent research line in this field.
The AGEM grant, which I received very early on as postdoc, has profoundly impacted my career. First, it allowed me to supervise a PhD candidate (Tom). Tom has successfully worked on most of the projects described above and will defend his thesis in November this year. Second, it has helped me to study various aspects of mathematical modelling (the expertise from my PhD) applied to oncology. This yielded relevant insights into fundamental tumor growth of GI cancers, as well as an in depth analysis of cancer genetics to help predict survival of cancer patients. It is this second aspect, of developing methods that can help clinicians to design treatment strategies, which I find most interesting and plan on studying further in the future. Third, the AGEM grant and the results we could generate within the project, helped me to acquire further funding from KWF and the CCA institute. I believe that the confidence that was given to me with the AG&M talent development grant, in particular because I was working in oncology for only two years, supported me into developing an independent line of research within the AGEM institute.
With this project we demonstrated the benefit of mathematical modelling applied to malignancies of the gastrointestinal tract within the AGEM institute. We have worked with surgeons, biomedical scientists, gastroenterologists, pathologists and oncologists on the various stages of diseases and tissues of origin. From these collaborations we have learned a lot about the biological and medical aspects of GI malignancies. In return, I believe we have demonstrated to all the medical specialists and biomedical scientists we have worked with the power of mathematical modelling to improve the fundamental understanding of disease and to stratify patient risk. Through these collaborations, our expertise of mathematics and statistical physics has hence been (partially) transferred to senior researcher within the AGEM institute. This could be a long lasting benefit for the institute and hopefully, a starting point for many more interdisciplinary collaborations.”
Overview of laureates per year
2023
| Laureates | Project title |
| Inez Verpalen | Automated MRI-based radiomics to predict high-grade dysplasia and cancer in patients with Intraductal Papillary Mucinous Neoplasms of the Pancreas (PRIMA-2). |
| Arwen Gao | Modulation of complex lipids to prevent aging |
2022
| Laureates | Project title |
| Patrick de Jonge | Viruses as contributors to short-chain fatty acid metabolism in the human gut. |
| Felicia Bloemendaal | "Mapping the circulating immune cell signature at a single cell level to predict response to anti-TNF treatment in Crohn’s disease." |
2021
| Laureates | Project title |
| Dirk Jan Stenvers | Role of the central brain clock in the pathophysiology of insulin resistance |
| Georges Janssens | What is the mechanism driving the NAD+ decline that occurs with aging? |
2020
| Laureate | Project title |
| Ruben Zapata-Perez | Enhancing brown adipose tissue metabolism through supplementation with novel NAD precursors |
2019
| Laureates | Project title |
| Jung-Chin Chang | Metabolic regulation of macrophage polarization by the emerging bioenergetic regulator soluble adenylyl cyclase |
| Joep Grootjans | Mapping the human peritoneal immune system to identify novel immunomodulatory treatment strategies for gastrointestinal diseases |
| Eveline Bruinstroop | Targeting non-alcoholic fatty liver disease at the crossroad of polyol metabolism and inflammation |
2018
| Laureates | Project title |
| Maartje Singendonk | Peroral endoscopic myotomy (POEM) vs endoscopic balloon dilation (EBD) for the treatment of idiopathic achalasia in children |
| Charlene Diepenbroek | Vagal innervation of the pancreas as a target for therapy in diet-induced beta cell failure |
2017
| Laureate | Project title |
| Daniel Miedema | Neutral competition in expanding malignancies of the GI tract |
Header: Jung-Chin Chang, laureate of the Talent development grant 2019.