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Earlier this year, Arno Bourgonje graduated cum laude on his doctoral thesis on biomarkers for the chronic intestinal disease IBD. Biomarkers are biological substances that can reflect a certain medical state or condition in the body. Biomarkers can help, for example, in early detection of disease or in predicting the effectiveness of treatment.
Arno found an important new biomarker that shows the severity of intestinal inflammation in IBD (Inflammatory Bowel Disease)-patients. His research also showed that there is a wide diversity of specific antibodies present in the blood in patients with IBD. Thanks to a brand new technique, he was already able to distinguish in a very accurate way patients with IBD from those without IBD with only a selection of ten antibodies. Arno is doing further follow-up research with the help of Lifelines into the possibility of being able to predict which people are at high risk of developing IBD in the future. He is going to New York now for two years for follow-up research. But he is determined to return to UMCG after that: 'UMCG feels almost like home'.
Who is Arno Bourgonje? And what drives him as a researcher? And what are the next steps in his research on IBD? He talks about it in this episode of UMCG Research Talk.
