Researcher Wouter Meijers of the UMCG in Groningen was awarded a Dekker grant from the Heart Foundation on Wednesday. It concerns an amount of 245,000 euros.
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Receiving the grant means that Meijers will be able to conduct research into cardiovascular diseases in the coming years, and in particular into the effects of immunotherapy. The immune system plays an important role in cardiovascular disease and cancer, but unfortunately some cancer cells can change themselves in such a way that they escape these immune cells.
Immunotherapy is a treatment against certain cancers that enables immune cells to make the cancer cells harmless again. Much progress has been made with this so-called immunotherapy, but there is still much to be gained. This treatment leads to inflammation of the heart in some patients. Meijers wants to investigate how immunotherapy against cancer leads to damage to the heart and whether it is possible to counteract this damage.
The Dekker grants were awarded for the 35th time and are named after Dr. E. Dekker, former director of the Heart Foundation and also the initiator of civilian assistance in the event of a cardiac arrest. Fourteen other researchers were also awarded a Dekker grant.