Nanne de Boer - “More in-depth”
“Deep down I am a clinical doctor,” Nanne de Boer admits. “But one with a love for scientific research. The combination of the two is what I like most about my work.” That was one of the reasons he was interested when he was asked for the post of co-director of AGEM.
De Boer started as co-director on January 1st, 2024, alongside his job as a gastroenterologist. Co-director Anita Boelen is professor of thyroid hormone metabolism at the endocrinology lab. AGEM covers a fairly broad area with gastroenterology, endocrinology and metabolic diseases. “The institute is a merger of three disciplines. That makes it difficult to focus. But we want to go a little more in-depth and in this way also bring the people within the research institute together.”
The choice of themes will help with this. One of these is 'Food for life' about nutrition in a broad sense. This translates into studying the microbiome, nutritional interventions, unraveling the metabolic consequences of nutrition, but also the use of nutrition for malnutrition or overnutrition.
A second important theme is 'Advanced diagnostics'. “It is a broad theme,” says De Boer, “in which at least ten principal investigators could be involved from their own line of research.” This concerns, for example, invasive diagnostics and AI, telemonitoring or the use of wearables for both predicting and monitoring disease.
As one of the younger research institutes, AGEM is relatively unknown. “I therefore want to focus on making it clear, both internally and externally, what we do, what our strengths are and what the value is of three subspecialties in one institute. I try to shake the tree with youthful naivety and enthusiasm. That is my role in the coming years.”
I try to shake the tree with youthful naivety and enthusiasm
A good example of what hybrid collaboration - in this case between metabolic diseases and endocrinology - can lead to is the expansion in 2023 of the heel prick to include a 27th disease, a metabolic disease (adrenoleukodystrophy). “I once accidentally ended up with someone from the metabolic laboratory because I wanted to see some rare enzyme. Only then will you find out what is possible at Amsterdam UMC. Often we have no idea what other people are doing. By consciously bringing people together, identifying themes and creating focus, people can get to know each other and thereby quickly know where to find each other.”
To learn about the plans of the other new directors, take a look at the article in the Janus magazine (in Dutch).