Grants given to young academics have a multi layered effect; they can bring innovative research results in the exact direction the institute is aiming for; they often bring new, multidisciplinary research collaboration, and can give young aspiring academics the push they want in their career.
Richie Goulding on his 'Ageing & Vitality' pilot grant 2023
Richie Goulding
'In 2023, I was awarded a personal grant from the Amsterdam Movement Sciences Ageing and Vitality reseasrch programme. The project focused on age related mitochondrial changes, and how these related to alterations in physical function with ageing. A part of the project also focused on setting up a new technique to noninvasively measure mitochondrial oxidative capacity and muscle diffusive capacity simultaneously. This project was a direct follow on from my postdoctoral work and enabled me to follow up on interesting findings from my postdoctoral tenure and develop them into my own research line. The grant came at a transitional time in my career, as I had recently accepted my first faculty position as assistant professor.
During this time, I had to deal with an increased teaching, supervision, and administrative load, and hence this grant was an essential lifeline that enabled me to keep working on my research profile by employing a research assistant to execute the project. In addition, the AMS grant allowed me to begin a collaboration with the MRI facility at the AMS, thereby allowing me to identify new means of testing research questions along this line of inquiry.
Perhaps the most important thing that this grant gave me was the potential to gather new and interesting pilot data for future grant applications. This pilot data formed the basis of my NWO Open Competition (ENW M) application which was awarded in February 2025. This grant, worth ~€420,000, allows me to keep the research assistant as a PhD student, thus providing me with the opportunity to develop this line of research for a further four years. Hence, this grant marks my transition to fully independent researcher, and the AMS Ageing and Vitality grant I was awarded in 2023 was absolutely instrumental for achieving this.
I hope that this line of research will continue to grow over the next four years, allowing me to further strengthen connections within the AMS network and identify further avenues within which to pursue funding along these lines in the future.'
More on Richie Goulding.
AMS Laureates 2023
| Name researcher | Type grant | Project title | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sports program | Program investment | Program strengthening activities | €80.000 |
| Musculoskeletal Health program | Program investment | Program strengthening activities | €80.000 |
| Tissue Function & Regeneration program | Program investment | Program strengthening activities | €80.000 |
| Ageing & Vitality program | Program investment | Program strengthening activities | €80.000 |
| Rehabilitation & Development program | Program investment | Program strengthening activities | €80.000 |
| Richie Goulding | Ageing & Vitality grant | Exercise as a countermeasure against the effects of ageing on muscle mitochondria, diffusive oxygen transport and muscle volume | €80.000 |
| Marike van der Leeden | Ageing & Vitality grant | Can AI-based prediction modeling with time series data on physical activity and protein intake support clinical decisions in patient recovery after oncological surgery? | €40.000 |
| Nathalie Bravenboer | Investment grant | Complete Organ-on-Chip platform | €35.733 |
| Braeden Charlton | Musculoskeletal Health: PhD candidate talent grant | The contribution of ADP-sensitivity to mitochondrial dysfunction in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis | €10.000 |
| Meghan Koop | Musculoskeletal Health: PhD candidate talent grant | The EXercise HypoALgesic Effect of Aerobic and Resistance Training in persistent low back pain and pain-free individuals: The EXHALE ART study | €10.000 |
| Minke Boeijenga | Musculoskeletal Health: MA student grant | In-vitro and in-vivo analysis of elbow instability using 4D-CT imaging | €5.000 |
| Cain Rutgers | Musculoskeletal Health: MA student grant | Determining the accuracy and reliability of synthetic CT-images created through MRI-images in comparison to conventional CT-images for the evaluation of osteoarthritis severity and surgical planning | €5.000 |
| Tom Kerkhoff | Tissue Function & Regeneration: Talent grant | Auto-immunity and muscle dysfunction: the effect of antibodies on muscle fiber contractility in myositis | €27.000 |
| Jules Cool | Dream-Big PhD grant | The use of MRI-based synthetic CT in the surgical treatment of adolescent idiopathic scoliosis using 3D printed drill guides | €5.580 |
| Giulia Frazzei | Dream-Big PhD grant | A mechanistic, open-label intervention study to investigate the effects of filgotinib in individuals with ACPA-positive arthralgia | €5.000 |
| Marina Jimenez Martinez | Dream-Big PhD grant | Can NAD+ levels predict the development of rheumatoid arthritis in at risk individuals? | €5.000 |
| Yiyuan Li | Dream-Big PhD grant | Does low-back pain change the contributions of proprioceptive and vestibular information to trunk stabilization during walking | €5.000 |
| Wenchao Zhong | Dream-Big PhD grant | Establish an aged PLS3 knockout mice model for exploring disease mechanism and novel therapy | €5.000 |
| Veerle van Harmelen | RMA-student grant | A new analysis method: using algorithms to derive muscle composition from US in children with CP | €3.000 |
| Rosa Korpershoek | RMA-student grant | Liver-skeletal muscle crosstalk in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease | €3.000 |
| Koen Zwetsloot | RMA-student grant | Fibre-type specific analysis on anabolic resistance in inactive muscles | €3.000 |