Veni grants for RIMLS researchers

The Veni is awarded annually by NWO and ZonMW. This year they have awarded 89 promising young scientists Veni funding of up to 280k euro. Eight of them are from Radboudumc and Radboud University. They can develop their own research ideas over a period of three years.

These scientists will conduct research into slowing Parkinson's disease through exercise, the genetic complexity of psychiatric disorders, how to measure fear memories in the brain, the impact of viruses on greenhouse gas emissions from soils, and more.

Three RIMLS researchers and their projects who received the Veni grant 2021 are:

Margo A. Dona, theme Vascular damage
ACCELERATE: ZebrAfish CanCer modEl Leading thE way towaRds treAtmenT dEvelopment for phaeochromocytomas and paragangliomas.
Mutations in the SDHB-gene are the most important risk factor for malignant phaeochromocytomas and paragangliomas, endocrine tumours, for which no curative treatment is available. This project entails the development of a mutant zebrafish tumour model, in which treatment modalities will be tested leading to novel treatment possibilities.

Lilly Verhagen, theme Infectious diseases and global health
Respiratory mucosal immunity: gateway to advance the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of childhood respiratory infections
Blood immune markers are used to diagnose children with respiratory tract infections. However, every respiratory infection starts with a local immune response in the airways. We will study innate immune cells that are crucial for the respiratory mucosal immune response to enable future mucosal treatment strategies without antibiotic overuse.

Suzan Stelloo, RIMLS-Faculty of Science
Dynamic changes in proteins during embryonic development
During early embryogenesis, stem cells develop into various different cell types. The development of different cell types involves changes in both protein expression levels and protein-protein interactions. The researchers will investigate the dynamic changes in protein expression and interaction during the development of embryonic stem cells into more specialized cells.

Talent Programme

Veni, together with Vidi and Vici, is part of the NWO Talent Programme (previously: the Innovational Research Incentive). Veni is aimed at excellent researchers who have recently gained their doctorates. Within the Talent Programme researchers are free to submit their own subject for funding. In this way NWO encourages curiosity-driven and innovative research. NWO selects researchers based on the quality of the researcher, the innovative nature of the research, the expected scientific impact of the research proposal and opportunities for knowledge utilization.

8 Veni grants for Radboudumc and University: more information in this link