Job van Boven is founder and director of Therapietrouw Expertisecentrum (Medication Adherence Expertise Center) MAECON. He also works as an assistant professor and researcher in the field of cost-effective medicine use at the UMCG and one day of the week he's a pharmacist.
"Within MAECON, I am working on various innovations in the field of effective medicine use and medication adherence. Amongst other things, we perform research on digital methods to both monitor and support patients in medicine use. Think for example of a digital pill bottle that could send patients a text message when they have to take their medication"
Maarten de Jong is head nurse of both the Department of Surgical Oncology and Abdominal Surgery and the Outpatient Clinic Oncology 2.
"The Innovation Center has been very helpful in assisting us with the process of advancing our project, and ultimately, reaching the pilot phase. For example, they connected us with individuals working on the Electronic Patient Record, or others involved in video calling initiatives."
Rick Pleijhuis and is an internist-allergist/immunologist at the UMCG. He's also very interested in innovations in the healthcare sector. As such, he has been involved in multiple innovation projects in the past few years.
"For the past few months, I have worked with my team on a concept called Innovation Friday, as a response to this fast-changing world. The issue we want to address is that there is currently (too) little attention for innovation in education. There are many good ideas that do not always get a stage, causing them to be lost."
Ody Sibon is a professor and researcher and also the lead a research group at the UMCG.
"I study a rare disease called Pantothenate-Kinase-Associated-Neurodegeneration, also known by the abbreviation PKAN. The disease is caused by a defect in the so-called pantothenate kinase 2 enzyme. This enzyme is needed to make coenzyme A from vitamin B5. A malfunction could lead to problems in the brain.
During the research (Coenzyme A metabolism in health and disease - Sibon Group), we found that fruit flies with PKAN would become less ill and live longer if they were provided a substance derived from vitamin B via their food. To explore this further, we had to make this substance suitable for testing in a clinical research with PKAN-patients. This sounds easier than it is: the execution takes a long time and is very complex."
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