Newsflash | Netherlands Genomics Initiative

The January edition of Nature outlined the major challenges
to the life sciences in the next decade and fully supported
the vision we presented in the “Partners in the Polder” book. Metabolomics was mentioned as a leading technology,
especially with respect to personalized medicine. The ageing population will be one of the important issues. Mapping
the human microbiome will be of huge interest in the food field. Multidisciplinary research will be key; in synthetic biology for instance, engineering and computer science need to be fully integrated. In general, the scale and complexity of contemporary problems will demand a much more collaborative, multidisciplinary approach. The Netherlands will be well-equipped to meet these challenges once the recommendations by the “Partners in
the Polder” are addressed successfully.

Colja Laane, Director NGI

Luc Rietveld joins AWT

Luc Rietveld has accepted a position at the Advisory Council for Science and Technology Policy (AWT) and will be leaving NGI on 15 March 2010. He has been involved with NGI since 2002, initially as coordinator of the Horizon programme and as Genomics Centres manager since 2006. Last year he participated in the writing of the FES Health proposal and the “Partners in the Polder” book. Luc will be succeeded by Tonnie Rijkers, who also has a biomedical background and has actively monitored a number of NGI Genomics Centres while working for Agentschap NL (previously SenterNovem), as well as IOP Genomics projects.

Valorisation

CBSG research has direct impact on R&D investments

The Centre for BioSystems Genomics (CBSG) commissioned an independent external evaluation of the impact of its research within the industrial partnership. All 15 private partners were fully cooperative. Anonymity was guaranteed through use of a consultancy specialized in quantitative analysis and management of innovation portfolio returns. Crop focus, size of the company, and place in the value chain all played a role
in determining the exact form of the added value of CBSG. Results show that CBSG research has had a direct positive effect on R&D investments, catalysed the development of new products and reduced innovation cycle time, leading to a strengthening of the economic position of the private potato and tomato partners.

Valorisation of Horizon Breakthrough projects

Horizon Programme is a NGI programme for short-term high risk projects. The programme has had seven rounds, which have led to many patent applications. A project by Thamar van Dijk at the Erasmus MC, for instance, focuses on genes involved in beta-thalassemia and sickle cell disease. The composition of the haemoglobin tetramer changes during development and the group searches for proteins that repress the foetal gamma-globin genes. Seven potential proteins have already been found, resulting in one patent application and two publications in less than a year. Additional NGI funding for valorisation of Breakthrough projects is available. Read more

Participate in NGI Venture Challenge Spring 2010

Thinking of starting up a company in
Life Sciences? The Venture Challenge is
a ‘must-do’ opportunity for all aspiring Life Sciences entrepreneurs, providing coaching and advice on essential elements of setting up a business, thereby paving the way for your future success. It is also superb preparation for the next stage: acquiring financing, such as the
Life Sciences Pre-Seed Grant. The call will be closed on 26 March 2010. Read more

Patent workshop 11 May 2010

NL Patent Office, the Programme Office IOP Genomics and NGI have jointly organised a patent workshop for Life Sciences researchers, to be held on
11 May 2010 (free of charge). This workshop will discuss basic patent facts, as well as look at knowledge protection from a genomics/life sciences point of view. If you are a PhD student, postdoc or project leader from either academia or industry, wanting to know more about patents, this is the workshop for you! Read more

Results of fourth round
Life Sciences Pre-Seed Grant

The forth round of the Pre-Seed Grant
saw 11 proposals accepted, 5 of which under special conditions. A total of 26 proposals were submitted during the forth round. The deadline of the fifth round has since also passed with 25 proposals submitted, proving the continued high interest. Read more

NPC Valorisation Voucher
for Bobby Florea

The Netherlands Proteomics Centre (NPC) has recently awarded the second
NPC Valorisation Voucher to Bobby Florea (Leiden University). He will launch a start-up company dedicated to providing organic synthesis of existing and custom compounds for Proteomics applications.
Read more

Win € 25,000 with food/biodiversity business plan

New Venture organises an annual business plan competition to help launch innovative start-ups. Besides three prizes of € 25,000 each for the three best innovative business plans, the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature Management and Food Quality (LNV) will this year award four additional prizes of € 25,000 to the best business plans in the field of biodiversity and food. Also, a special Life Sciences seminar will be held on 24 March 2010.
Read more

Genomics Centres

New model for stem cell regulation

Hans Clevers, Cancer Genomics Centre (CGC) researcher and director of the Hubrecht Institute in Utrecht, is co-author of a review in Science proposing a new model for the regulation of mature stem cells. This model explains how the existence side by side of two different stem cell populations (an active and inactive) regulates the maintenance of stem cells while supporting fast tissue regeneration at the same time. Hans Clevers was the first to report on the existence of active stem cells in the intestine.

Life sciences and medical sciences in evolutionary framework

During his Dies Natalis lecture of the Leiden University, Rudi Westendorp, director of the Netherlands Consortium
for Healthy Ageing (NCHA), pressed for the embedding of life sciences and medical sciences within an evolutionary frame-work. This would prevent fragmentation
in the search for solutions for problems, such as those accompanying ageing,
and replace the dominant view of organs as individual machines losing their function as a result of specific biological processes. Read more

Queen Wilhelmina Research Prize for immune therapy against cancer

KWF Kankerbestrijding (Dutch Cancer Foundation) has this year awarded the prestigious Queen Wilhelmina Research Prize of € 2 million to Kees Melief and Sjoerd van der Burg, researchers attached to the Centre for Medical Systems Biology (CMSB). This money will be spent on strengthening the effects of immunotherapy. Immune therapy teaches the natural immune system to recognize cancer cells, especially as regards cervical cancer and other gynaecological tumours. Up to now, the success of this therapy is limited to early stages of cancer. Read more

Antoine van Kampen leaves NBIC

After four years, Antoine van Kampen has ended his position as science director of the Netherlands Bioinformatics Centre (NBIC). He has committed himself during this period towards the development of NBIC as a bioinformatics expertise network. Now, he will focus his attention on the bioinformatics group of the Academic Medical Centre and the Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences (SILS). Antoine's departure coincides with that of emeritus professor Bob Hertzberger as deputy science manager. NBIC will in the coming months redefine its scientific management.

Minister Van der Hoeven lays first bio-brick BE-Basic

18 February 2010 marked the signing
of the BE-Basic Consortium, in the presence of Minister of Economic Affairs, Maria van der Hoeven. BE-Basic is
a public-private partnership that executes an innovation and research programme that builds on the recognised break-throughs of B-Basic and the Ecogenomics Consortium.
BE-Basic supports the development of clean, robust and competitive biobased chemicals, materials and energy industries, including responsible monitoring and control of healthy soil and water environments, on the basis of advanced genomics technologies and bioprocess engineering. TU Delft is coordinating the new consortium that includes an R&D budget
of more than €120 million. Within BE-Basic, the Ecogenomics Consortium was awarded
€ 18 million. Read more

Genome-Wide Association Studies of MRI-Defined
Brain Infarcts

The CHARGE consortium, in which the Netherlands Consortium for Healthy Ageing participates, recently published
a paper in Stroke about the genetic variation underlying silent brain infarcts, visible on MRI scans. A number of potential interesting hits were found. Innovative
is the combination of two state of the art technologies: genome wide genotyping and neuro-imaging using MRI. Read more

CBSG and Kluyver Centre
join forces

Researchers from the Centre for BioSystems Genomics (CBSG) and the Kluyver Centre for Genomics of Industrial Fermentation have initiated a collaboration to develop yeast cells as production platforms for complicated plant metabolites. The primary goal in the first phase of the research, which is supported by a Horizon grant, is to reconstruct plant pathways for key precursor molecules in yeast cells. These engineered yeast cells will then be used as a screening platform to synthesize a large number of plant-derived metabolites and to explore their biological activities.

DGMS Award 2010 for Albert Heck

Albert Heck, director of the Netherlands Proteomics Centre (NPC), has been awarded
the DGMS Award 2010 (Deutschen Gesellschaft fϋr Massenspektrometrie) for his scientific contributions to mass spectrometry. Heck received his award at the 43rd Annual Conference in Halle, Germany (7-11 March 2010).

Genomics Programmes

Travel stipend for top researchers 2010

The NGI Distinguished Visiting Scientist Stipend offers top researchers associated
with one of the NGI Genomics Centres an opportunity to perform research at a foreign top institute. The programme also enables foreign top researchers to come to the NGI Genomics Centres. Closing date for new proposals is 1 April 2010. Read more

Society

CSG awards utility of social genomics research

The Centre for Society and Genomics (CSG) has launched two competitions
to express its support for social research that translates its results to relevant audiences in genomics and society.
The best plan for a product or activity presented by CSG researchers and partners will receive € 5,000. Nine proposals have been submitted for this competition. In addition, scholars from five countries have submitted 20 publications for the first CSG Prize that will be awarded to the most widely relevant publication based on social genomics research.

Healthy Ageing in Dutch Newspapers

Interviews with the science directors of the Netherlands Consortium for Healthy Ageing (NCHA) were recently published in Dutch newspapers. De Volkskrant featured the article ‘Stop deterioration, keep in motion!’, about the importance of physical activity for healthy ageing, especially concerning cognitive functioning. NRC Handelsblad presented ‘Harvest time for gene researchers’, which describes the approach of two very different methods to search for genes that influence diseases: the classic genetics and the epidemiology. Attention for DNA sequencing is what they have in common. Read more

No health care due to wrong genes?

Erik Aarden (Maastricht University) studied whether healthcare systems include new technologies in the basic insurance package and whether patients are given access to these. This research focused on three genetic technologies: pre-implantation genetic diagnostics whereby in-vitro fertilisation is combined with genetic research; monitoring for hereditary breast cancer; diagnosis and treatment of familial hypercholesterolaemia, an affliction that seriously increases the risk of cardiovascular diseases. Erik Aarden signals significant differences in the approach taken in the Netherlands, England and Germany. His study was conducted within the 'The Societal Component of Genomics Research' programme (MCG – concluded in 2008). Read more

Events

29 - 30 March 2010
Fifth edition of the Netherlands Bioinformatics Centre Conference
Lunteren
Read more

3 - 6 May 2010
BIO International Convention
Chicago, USA
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15 April 2010
The Omics Promise: Opportunities for Environmental Objectives
RIVM, Bilthoven
Read more

27 - 28 May 2010
Ten years after: mapping the societal landscape of genomics
Royal Tropical Institute, Amsterdam
Read more

19 - 21 April 2010
6th Annual Meeting of the Ecogenomics Consortium
Het Trippenhuis, Amsterdam
Read more

27 June - 1 July 2010
Metabolomics 2010
Amsterdam
Read more

21 - 23 April 2010
Postdoc Retreat for the Life Sciences
Conferentiehotel
Kapellerput, Heeze
Read more

21 - 22 October 2010
NCSB Symposium 2010
Read more

View all events

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