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EMRP project MetVes (HLT02) researcher wins thesis award of the Dutch Society for Biophysics and Biomedical Engineering

On 28 September 2015, Edwin van der Pol, a researcher at project partner AMC, received the award from the Dutch Society for Biophysics and Biomedical Engineering for his thesis on the detection of extracellular vesicles from bodily fluids.

Microvesicles are fragments of plasma membrane present in biological fluids such as blood and urine. They differ between patients and healthy people, and can therefore be used as biomarkers for diseases such as cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular disease, offering many benefits compared to current invasive techniques. However, detecting microvesicles is difficult because of their small size - current techniques can only detect around 1 to 2 % of the total amount present, which is not accurate enough to make a diagnosis. EMRP project ‘Metrological characterisation of micro-vesicles from body fluids as non-invasive diagnostic biomarkers’ will develop techniques for the reliable, comparable and quantitative analysis of microvesicles.

The thesis was judged on the basis of new insights obtained by the work, scientific quality, presentation, and accessibility for non-specialists. Van der Pol received his award during the DutchBiophysics 2015 meeting in Veldhoven, where he was invited to give a 2-minute pitch during the support act of William E. Moerner (laureate of last year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry).

The full thesis can be found here.