2024
This year, the Young AGEM board was officially appointed and they started out great with their first event, the Young AGEM career lunch on April 11.
On April 25 AGEM organized the second AGEM PI event: again around 20 AGEM principal investigators met up at the Volkshotel, this time to discuss their research related to "Advanced Dianostics".
Thursday May 23 AGEM organized their very first Grant Award Ceremony! It was a fun event where the winners of the Innovation grants and the Talent Development grants were officially awarded their prizes. The program was further filled up by the Best Publication 2023 Battle and talks by three AGEM grant laureates: Eveline Bruinstroop, Joep Grootjans and Georges Janssens.
🏆 Innovation grant winners: Eefje Belt-van Zoen, Daniël Docter, Sofieke de Jonge, and Patrick van der Zande
🏆 Talent Development grant winners: Anne van der Spek, Mohammed Ghiboub and Tim de Meij
🏆 Best Publication 2023 winner: Sebastian Hendrix. Other nominees: Katy van Galen and Heleen Jansen.
2023
The year started out great with a kick off at the AMC in February for the second round of the ImmunoMetNet series. The afternoon was filled with very interesting scientific discussions around the 4 topics presented. Once again, the stage was reserved for young researchers. The day ended with a chance to network and have some drinks.
On October 5 we organized the first ever AGEM PI event; twenty AGEM researchers came together to discuss their research related to “Food for Life”. The aim of the evening was to find thematic connection and synergies specifically within AGEM. Researchers that were invited to present, informed the others on the existing research through various pitches that could be loosely grouped into three themes: Food for Adults, Food for Children and Food in Hospitals. After these presentations, more in depth discussions and networking were facilitated during a walking dinner with delicious bites that paired perfectly with the theme of the evening.
2022
On November 7, twenty Principal Investigators from the AGEM institute and Amsterdam Institute for Infection and Immunity (AII) joined the second edition of the AGEM - AII meet & greet. Several PIs presented their research in a short pitch. A mix of diseases with immunological, metabolic and malignant basis and how our collaborative efforts can contribute to further understanding pathogenesis as well as improve diagnosis and treatment of these diseases was discussed.
2021
On November 2, 2021 (in the short timeframe where it was possible to organize meet and greets on location) the first AGEM - AII Meet and Greet took place. In this meeting, Principal Investigators from the AGEM institute and the Amsterdam Institute for Infection and Immunity (AII) met in CASA Amsterdam. The aim of this meeting was to get to know each other and to explore possible cooperation between AGEM and AII research groups, focusing on unraveling basic immunological principles of chronic diseases.
2020
Following the outbreak of COVID-19 in the Netherlands in the beginning of 2020, AGEM moved its symposia online. Even though this hindered the possiblity of networking to some extent, there were also several added benefits from organizing online symposia. AGEM was now able to attract a wider variety of well-known key speakers from faraway countries such as the US, and lectures and symposia could be organized on a more regular basis since there was less travel time involved for speakers as well as participants. The webinar series on "Owning Obesity & Negating NASH", for instance, included weekly online lectures every Thursday afternoon in November 2020. In the webinar series, (inter)national speakers shared their research and views on NAFLD and obesity, ranging from lectures on fundamental research to more clinically aimed presentations. The online setting also allowed for many international participants attending the series, with over 100 attendees during the first session.