Maaike van der Lee wins the national PhD competition 2021 at the FIGON Dutch Medicine Days
We are congratulating Maaike van der Lee, PhD candidate at LUMC-KFT, for winning the national PhD competition 2021 at the FIGON Dutch Medicine Days. During this national competition, 8 researchers from the major university cities in the Netherlands present their work in the field of innovative medicine research.
After winning the preliminary round, which was held during the LACDR Spring symposium, Maaike was representing the region Leiden. The FIGON PhD Competition has a long tradition and we are very proud to have a winner from Leiden again. It is a wonderful recognition for Maaike’s work in the field of Pharmaogenomics and her PhD supervision team.
The research presented focuses on the genetics of the CYP2D6 enzyme involved in drug metabolism. By combining artificial intelligence with long-read sequencing, it is possible to explain significantly more of the variation in the activity of this enzyme, from 54% to 79%. This innovative approach will hopefully lead in the future to a more accurate prediction of how a person responds to medication.