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Doctor-researcher Arno Bourgonje (26) is doing his PhD on biomarkers in the blood that can be used to monitor the course of intestinal diseases. He has been scouted by a prestigious research group from the US. Photo: Jasper Moulijn
Bam. With a dull bang, Arno Bourgonje (26) drops his thesis on the table. Just lift it up, says the doctor-researcher. At almost 3 kilos, his work is about the weight of a newborn baby. It has 1108 pages, making it one of the most voluminous dissertations in the history of the University of Groningen (RUG). According to Prof. Dr. Gerard Dijkstra, Bourgonje’s first supervisor, it may even be the thickest dissertation in the Netherlands.