LUMC professor and member of the LUMC Global Steering Committee, Maria Yazdanbakhsh receives Spinoza Prize

The Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) and Ixaka Ltd. have announced a research collaboration on 30 March 2021, to better understand REX-001, Ixaka’s lead cell therapy product. The project will be led by Professor Paul Quax, Head of Experimental Vascular Surgery at the LUMC, to support accelerated development of REX-001 in Phase III clinical trials for the treatment of chronic limb-threatening ischemia (CLTI).

Global epidemics come in many forms and attract different kinds of attention depending on the severity of the diseases. But as Fathimah’s research demonstrates, there’s a risk that comes with giving too little attention to epidemics that don’t have immediate life altering/threatening effects. It’s for this exact reason that obesity is often overlooked in terms of severity. In the short term, obesity isn’t life threatening perse, but over time, the complications of obesity become progressively more dangerous and ultimately life threatening. With around 40 percent of the global population being overweight and 13 percent suffering from obesity, Fathimah’s recent PhD research on the topic might prove invaluable in the future.

By developing an improved health data management system, the Virus Outbreak Data Network (VODAN)-Africa research team is enabling local and global distributed access to crucial data required to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, future disease outbreaks and general disease conditions.