The AMS Annual Research Meeting on March 14, 2024 was a success, full of scientific posters, workshops, innovating talks, and winners!
The theme of this year's annual meeting was Diversity, Equity & Inclusion in Sports and Research. The first keynote speakers, Professors Astrid Bakker and Peter Bisschop, spoke on the topic of more healthy and productive years for Peri-menopausal women, as part of the menopause consortium, for which they have been given an NWO grant of €9.4 million. Keynote speaker Zoran Bahtijarević, CMO of UEFA, due to unforeseen circumstances spoke from his home office on inclusive health and performance in football from a medical perspective. We thank alll three keynote speakers for their great contribution.
The first ever AMS Diversity Award was won by Heleen Docter who gave a short online talk on female athletes and how the day of the month matters. The Award for Societal Outreach was won by Ingrid Kouwijzer for her work with the handbikebattle project, on the effects of training on illness cognition for athletic challenge in individuals with chronic disability. The awards for outstanding papers were presented to Guido Geusebroek for Basic Science on constant force muscle stretching which induces greater acute deformations and changes in passive mechanical properties compared to constant length stretching. The Clinical Science category was won and presented by Niels Waterval for his paper on the interaction between muscle pathophysiology, body mass, walking speed and ankle foot orthosis stiffness on walking energy cost. The outstanding paper award for the Sports & Health Science category was won by RMA-student Raven Huiberts for his publication on concurrent strength and endurance training: the impact of sex and training status. Congrats to all of you!
More than 60 PhD candidates took the opportunity to present their scientific posters in the poster sessions and some had in advance been selected to give a 1-minute plenary pitch on their research to attract a larger audience to their poster. After some time for discussions, conversations, workshops and a royal lunch, the outstanding poster awards were given. The Poster Award for Basic Science was awarded to Edwin Reuvers on how to generate maximal power, for Clinical Science the winner was Lisa Vossen on associating scalar and multi-dimensional plantar pressure parameter for assessing offloading effectiveness on custom-made footwear for people with Diabetes. The Sports & Health Poster Award was won by Muhammad Ikwan Zein for his baseline clinical and MRI findings as predictor of hamstring reinjury. The audience favorite poster was awarded to Laura Ventura , on collagen expression in cutaneus tissues of a new mouse model of happloinsufficient (mild) Osteogenesis Imperfecta. We thank all the PhD candidates for their enthusiasm and contribution to the 2024 AMS Annual Research Meeting.
The new AMS director Professor dr. Hans Tol was officially introduced, he will take over the baton from professor dr. Mario Maas as director of AMS, next to professor dr. Richard Jaspers. We also said goodbye with love and gratitude to professor dr. Jenneke Klein-Nulend, who in May 2024 will become professor emeritus.
We thank you all for attending this year’s annual meeting, we hope you enjoyed this wonderful day and hope to see you again next year!
The organizing committee of the 2024 meeting, from left to right. 1st row: Professor dr. Richard Jaspers, Chantal Hulshof, Maria Luiza di Carlo Riato, Elise van t Hof. 2nd row: Professor dr. Evert Verhagen, Thalia Zamora Gomez, Dr. Melissa Hooijmans, Simone Caso. 3rd row: Dr. Ton Schoenmaker, Julian Hollander, Solveig Lund.
All pictures by Xander Remkes Fotografie.