Medical/Biomedical Sciences

Linda van Laake received the Heineken Young Scientists Award for Medicine 2012 for her research on regeneration of the heart with embryonic stem cells.
She is carrying out her innovative research at the Hubrecht Institute and Utrecht University Medical Centre. After taking her PhD, Dr Van Laake was awarded an ICIN fellowship for postdoctoral work at the Gladstone Institute at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). She then commenced clinical training in cardiology and also began work with her own research group, supported by a VENI scholarship awarded by the Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development (ZonMw). The jury praises Dr Van Laake highly as one of the few young medical specialists who succeed in combining clinical work with basic scientific research, referring also to her perseverance and creativity.

Article
— Interview with Linda van Laake in Akademie Nieuws (in Dutch)

Puck Knipscheer received the Heineken Young Scientists Award for Biochemistry and Biophysics 2010 for her research at the interface of biochemistry and molecular cell biology.
Her PhD research at the Netherlands Cancer Institute has generated important new insights into the way that protein activity is regulated in cells. As a postdoc at Harvard Medical School, Puck Knipscheer studied how the genes responsible for Fanconi anaemia (a genetic disease that leads to bone marrow failure and in many cases to cancer) are involved in repairing damage to DNA. She will be establishing a research group at the Hubrecht Institute in Utrecht in late 2010.

Article
— Interview with Puck Knipscheer in Akademie Nieuws (Dutch)

Dr Menno van Zelm received the Heineken Young Scientists Award for Medicine 2010 for his research on the cellular and molecular mechanisms that cause antibody deficiencies, i.e. serious immune system disorders.
His research is important for our understanding of immune disorders, how the body fights infection, and what causes inflammatory diseases and serious bone marrow and lymph node disorders. Menno van Zelm works at Erasmus Medical Centre Rotterdam.

Article
— Interview with Menno van Zelm in Akademie Nieuws (Dutch)