Winners 2012/2

The PhD Awards 2012/2 go to Astrid van der Veldt from Amsterdam and Tessa Buckle from Leiden. 

“Besides their exceptional track records, both theses present concepts that are straight forward and easily applicable in the clinics. Astrid van der Veldt achieved exceptional results in personalizing chemotherapy, while Tessa Buckle pushed the clinical implementation of (molecular) optical imaging in surgical interventions.”

Fabian Kiessling – Award Committee.

Congratulations to:

  • Tessa Buckle from Leiden for her exceptional work on “Interventional molecular imaging, a hybrid approach” and to
  • Astrid van der Veldt for her excellent work on “Towards personalized treatment planning of chemotherapy: [11C]docetaxel PET studies in lung cancer patients.”

Astrid van der Veldt and her thesis on “Towards personalized treatment planning of chemotherapy: [11C]docetaxel PET studies in lung cancer patients”

Astrid van der Veldt, promoveert twee keer op verschillende onderzoeken op dezelfde dag

read the abstract of the thesis

fulltext of thesis

Astrid van der Veldt is working at the VU University Medieal Center, Amsterdam.

“Astrid is a medical doctor and enthusiastic rcsearcher who would likc to combine patient care with scientific research in oncology. She has been an excellent PhO student in a medieal oncology research fellowship at the departments of Nuclear Medicine & PET research and Mediea! Oncology, Astrid has written two different theses entitled ‘S1fI1Wllib jor adVClllced renal cell cancer – clillical and pharmacodynamic aspecls’ and ‘Iowardl’ personalized treatment plannillg oj chemotherapy: tlCjdocctaxel PET studies in lung cancer pafients’. She defended these two theses on the same day.

Adriaan Lammertsma – supervisor

Tessa Buckle and her thesis on “Interventional molecular imaging, a hybrid approach”

read the abstract of the thesis

fulltext of thesis

Tessa Buckle is working in the Leiden University Medical Center – LUMC as a postdoctoral fellow within the Interventional Molecular Imaging group of Dr. Fijs van Leeuwen. 

“Her preclinical efforts in visualizing the sentinel lymph node using a hybrid imaging approach enabled the integration of pre- and intraoperative imaging in this application. Within 2 years, the hybrid tracer ICG-99mTc-nanocolloid was preclinically validated and applied in clinical studies. Currently, studies using this tracer were conducted in several tumor types in > 200 patients, in two different hospitals.
The studies using CXCR4 targeting imaging agents described in this thesis will be of great value for the eventual implementation of these imaging agents in a clinical setting.”

Fijs van Leeuwen – supervisor

Winners 2012/1

The first PhD Awards went to “two young promising scientists whose PhD work was acknowledged for creating an extra momentum to the field of Molecular Imaging.” stated Annemie van der Linden – chair of the award committee 

Congratulations to:

  • Angelique Ale from Munich for her excellent basic work on “Hybrid Fluorescence Molecular Tomography and X-ray CT, Methods and Applications”. Her PhD thesis presents outstanding results on the subject of Reconstruction of Fluorescence Molecular Tomography (FMT) based on CT which is considered as an important development creating significant implications for in vivo molecular imaging.  
  • Lucia Crane from Groningen for her excellent translational work on “Intraoperative fluorescence imaging in cancer”. Her PhD thesis presents outstanding data which is currently considered as one of the most important clinical translation tools in molecular imaging.

Angelique Ale and her thesis on “Hybrid Fluorescence Molecular Tomography and X-ray CT, Methods and Applications”

read the abstract of the thesis

fulltext of thesis

Angelique Ale recently started as post-Doc in the theoretical Systems Biology group at Imperial College. She wrote her PhD thesis at the Institute for Biological and Medical Imaging, Helmholtz Zentrum Muenchen.

“From the very beginning, Ms. Ale has always been very enthusiastic, ambitious, eager to learn and highly self-motivated. I was often impressed by her accomplishments […]. As a consequence of her dedication, Ms Ale’s work has become a leader in the field, resulting in numerous publications, including a Nature Methods paper.”

Vasilis Ntziachristos – supervisor

(FMT-XCT: in vivo animal studies with hybrid fluorescence molecular tomography-X-ray computed tomography. Ale A, Ermolayev V, Herzog E, Cohrs C, de Angelis MH, Ntziachristos V. Nat Methods. 2012 Jun;9(6):615-20.)

Lucia Crane and her thesis on “Intraoperative fluorescence imaging in cancer”

read the abstract of the thesis

fulltext of thesis

Lucia Crane has been working at the University Medical Center Groningen, Department of Surgery 

“Not only is she a concise and enthusiastic researcher, she is also a dedicated and empathic doctor. This combination makes that she is most happy in translational clinical research, and that she is an essential member of our research group, both socially as intellectually. […] Her PhD-thesis is one of the first to report of intraoperative fluorescence imaging in a clinical setting, and as such serves as a stepping stone for future studies.”

Go van Dam – supervisor