NL
DE
5 March 2020
Where do you live and with whom?
I live next to the Radboudumc, which allows me to walk to work, and back home to my wife and 2 kids (11 and 13 years).
When you were a kid what did you want to be when you grew up? Can you tell us something about your child years.
As a kid, I wanted to become a general practitioner, or an accountant. For me, school was always in combination with a lot of other activities: working at a Van der Valk hotel, sports (squash and the Egmond half marathon) and playing the clarinet in a local "harmonie", a sort of a big band.
What was your previous academic training, where did you study and why did you choose that study/those studies?
After high school, I was lucky to get admitted to medical school at the VU university in Amsterdam. Again, a lot of side steps, including a year of law and several committees and boards. And a research internship that I started at the department of Pediatric nephrology, which I enjoyed enormously. The combination of working with children and young parents, and the challenges of physiology were a perfect suit for me. And I have always liked numbers (hence the accountancy), and nephrology is filled with that! So after medical school, I combined my training as a pediatrician with a PhD in kidney development, again in Amsterdam. During the last phase, I started training as a pediatric nephrologist in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, with a break as research fellow in London, which I finished here in Nijmegen. As this is the best place for a clinician-scientist in Pediatric nephrology, it was (and is) my dream job!
Of which of your research discoveries, you are most proud of?
During my PhD, I was looking for an example in humans in which less functioning kidney tissue was present. An easy choice: children born with just 1 kidney. Our results showed that many of these kids had a sign of renal injury, with increased blood pressure or proteinuria. As this was different from the common idea that just 1 kidney is harmless, it was quite an uphill battle to convince colleagues. In 2013, we published our results from the largest cohort in the world in the number 1 pediatrics journal, and showed that more than 50% of children born with 1 kidney show signs of renal injury before they turn 18 years. This has really shifted the idea on being born with a reduced kidney mass.
What is your most important scientific challenge in the coming 5 years?
Now we know that it is a problem to have just 1 kidney, the question is why? And can we prevent that? Our animal studies help us to get more insight, and I hope to start a clinical trial within the next 5 years to prevent the renal injury in newborns. Furthermore, we are conducting 2 international clinical trials in children with nephrotic syndrome, and finishing these may not be a scientific challenge (rather an organizational one), but will definitely result in important scientific insights.
If you could choose any mentor, who would this be?
If I could choose any, I would choose them all! Every colleague has something to offer, something I can learn from her/him. That can be the way to manage your agenda, to interact with a patient, to keep asking questions to get to the core of a problem. The great thing of working in an academic setting is that you are continuously exposed to potential mentors each and every day.
What is your favorite topic: molecules - patients - population?
Definitely patients! They provide me with motivation to find new answers, as the lack of insight in their disease is a constant trigger to do research. Both population studies and molecular studies are needed for such insight. But at the end of the day, it needs to filter back to that all important person, my patient.
What should be changed / improved in the scientific community?
Collaborations are vital to research, especially in fields with rare diseases. Populations studies and clinical trials in such cohorts do provide much insight, and can only be achieved by collaborations. At the same time, the only proper spot on a publication is first and last (according to many interpretations), so only a few people from the collaboration can achieve that, which too often forms a reason to work only in small consortia.
Is there anything we can wake you up for in the middle of the night?
A kidney offer for one of our patients on the renal transplant waiting list. We are lucky that for most of our patients we can find a parent or other relative/ acquaintance who can donate a kidney. Unfortunately, some of the kids are on the waiting list, and spend sometimes years on dialysis before a proper kidney is available. Most of the calls from Eurotransplant that a kidney is available are made in the middle of the night. But these calls are more than welcome! Knowing these cases, please allow me here to urge everybody to register in the donorregister if they want to be a donor! (https://english.donorregister.nl)
What is the thing that irritates you most?
Work-wise, that is the unneeded registration/admin. The number of forms, orders and so on that you have to work with to get proper care for patients is annoying. I know admin is too present at too many places, but this is just an example I run into too often.
Who would you like to have dinner with, if you had the chance?
That would be Umberto Tan. I imagine him to be a great guy to have dinner with, and he is so good at being enthusiastic about everything he does, and finding the spotlight all the time. I would pick his brain on how I could get my research into the spotlight as well, which is not my forte.
How do you relax from the demanding job being a scientist?
I am lucky to have a lot of distractions. First of all, my patients. It is a constant reminder why I do research, and why it is so vital to develop our profession further. On the other hand, they do add to the demanding job. So most importantly, my family. A perfect way to get your mind of work, is to play a game, have dinner together, and share in the excitement of "wie is de mol?". And of course, relaxing with a good Netflix series. And sports.
Do you have a tip for our most junior scientists?
Follow your curiosity. Research can be a vary challenging environment, and the best way to tackle that stress is to make sure you do what you love! At the same time, if you are indeed curious, a new subject may not be your first choice, but dive into it and you may very well will find that it is quite intriguing!
Please make a selection:
o Crisper-Cas9 or AI: Crispr-Cas9
o Pipette or Biostatistics: I'm not too good at both
o RT-PCR or Proteomics: Proteomics
o Big data or Clinical trial: Clinical trial
Please add a photo which represents a remarkable event or experience you were part of? Please explain.
Where do you live and with whom?
I live next to the Radboudumc, which allows me to walk to work, and back home to my wife and 2 kids (11 and 13 years).
When you were a kid what did you want to be when you grew up? Can you tell us something about your child years.
As a kid, I wanted to become a general practitioner, or an accountant. For me, school was always in combination with a lot of other activities: working at a Van der Valk hotel, sports (squash and the Egmond half marathon) and playing the clarinet in a local "harmonie", a sort of a big band.
What was your previous academic training, where did you study and why did you choose that study/those studies?
After high school, I was lucky to get admitted to medical school at the VU university in Amsterdam. Again, a lot of side steps, including a year of law and several committees and boards. And a research internship that I started at the department of Pediatric nephrology, which I enjoyed enormously. The combination of working with children and young parents, and the challenges of physiology were a perfect suit for me. And I have always liked numbers (hence the accountancy), and nephrology is filled with that! So after medical school, I combined my training as a pediatrician with a PhD in kidney development, again in Amsterdam. During the last phase, I started training as a pediatric nephrologist in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, with a break as research fellow in London, which I finished here in Nijmegen. As this is the best place for a clinician-scientist in Pediatric nephrology, it was (and is) my dream job!
Of which of your research discoveries, you are most proud of?
During my PhD, I was looking for an example in humans in which less functioning kidney tissue was present. An easy choice: children born with just 1 kidney. Our results showed that many of these kids had a sign of renal injury, with increased blood pressure or proteinuria. As this was different from the common idea that just 1 kidney is harmless, it was quite an uphill battle to convince colleagues. In 2013, we published our results from the largest cohort in the world in the number 1 pediatrics journal, and showed that more than 50% of children born with 1 kidney show signs of renal injury before they turn 18 years. This has really shifted the idea on being born with a reduced kidney mass.
What is your most important scientific challenge in the coming 5 years?
Now we know that it is a problem to have just 1 kidney, the question is why? And can we prevent that? Our animal studies help us to get more insight, and I hope to start a clinical trial within the next 5 years to prevent the renal injury in newborns. Furthermore, we are conducting 2 international clinical trials in children with nephrotic syndrome, and finishing these may not be a scientific challenge (rather an organizational one), but will definitely result in important scientific insights.
If you could choose any mentor, who would this be?
If I could choose any, I would choose them all! Every colleague has something to offer, something I can learn from her/him. That can be the way to manage your agenda, to interact with a patient, to keep asking questions to get to the core of a problem. The great thing of working in an academic setting is that you are continuously exposed to potential mentors each and every day.
What is your favorite topic: molecules - patients - population?
Definitely patients! They provide me with motivation to find new answers, as the lack of insight in their disease is a constant trigger to do research. Both population studies and molecular studies are needed for such insight. But at the end of the day, it needs to filter back to that all important person, my patient.
What should be changed / improved in the scientific community?
Collaborations are vital to research, especially in fields with rare diseases. Populations studies and clinical trials in such cohorts do provide much insight, and can only be achieved by collaborations. At the same time, the only proper spot on a publication is first and last (according to many interpretations), so only a few people from the collaboration can achieve that, which too often forms a reason to work only in small consortia.
Is there anything we can wake you up for in the middle of the night?
A kidney offer for one of our patients on the renal transplant waiting list. We are lucky that for most of our patients we can find a parent or other relative/ acquaintance who can donate a kidney. Unfortunately, some of the kids are on the waiting list, and spend sometimes years on dialysis before a proper kidney is available. Most of the calls from Eurotransplant that a kidney is available are made in the middle of the night. But these calls are more than welcome! Knowing these cases, please allow me here to urge everybody to register in the donorregister if they want to be a donor! (https://english.donorregister.nl)
What is the thing that irritates you most?
Work-wise, that is the unneeded registration/admin. The number of forms, orders and so on that you have to work with to get proper care for patients is annoying. I know admin is too present at too many places, but this is just an example I run into too often.
Who would you like to have dinner with, if you had the chance?
That would be Umberto Tan. I imagine him to be a great guy to have dinner with, and he is so good at being enthusiastic about everything he does, and finding the spotlight all the time. I would pick his brain on how I could get my research into the spotlight as well, which is not my forte.
How do you relax from the demanding job being a scientist?
I am lucky to have a lot of distractions. First of all, my patients. It is a constant reminder why I do research, and why it is so vital to develop our profession further. On the other hand, they do add to the demanding job. So most importantly, my family. A perfect way to get your mind of work, is to play a game, have dinner together, and share in the excitement of "wie is de mol?". And of course, relaxing with a good Netflix series. And sports.
Do you have a tip for our most junior scientists?
Follow your curiosity. Research can be a vary challenging environment, and the best way to tackle that stress is to make sure you do what you love! At the same time, if you are indeed curious, a new subject may not be your first choice, but dive into it and you may very well will find that it is quite intriguing!
Please make a selection:
o Crisper-Cas9 or AI: Crispr-Cas9
o Pipette or Biostatistics: I'm not too good at both
o RT-PCR or Proteomics: Proteomics
o Big data or Clinical trial: Clinical trial
Please add a photo which represents a remarkable event or experience you were part of? Please explain.
Every year, we go on a hike for a few days with a group of friends, mostly in wintertime. Even though we've been in beautiful places as the Ardennes, the Pennine way, France, or the Eifelsteig, stunning nature can be found close to the Radboud as well. This is a picture I took less than half an hour walk from work at Heumensoord. A great place to clear your mind....
