Meet the PhD-student — Simone van der Schot

To start off, could you introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your academic background?
Yes, definitely! My name is Simone, and after studying molecular biology and biochemistry, I decided that I wanted to learn more technical skills and I therefore switched to studying physics. As I was still highly interested in medical research and medical applications, I focused a lot on physics courses and research projects related to medical applications during my bachelor and master programs. I find it really exciting to be working on a project at the interface of physics and medicine now!    

Can you tell us about the project you'll be working on and what interests you most about it?
Within CHIME my project focuses on combining and improving the MR techniques ‘spectroscopy’ and measuring diffusion properties. The spectroscopy technique allows us to accurately measure specific cell types, such as brain cells, or only specific cells of the immune system in the brain. With the diffusion measurements we hope to learn more about the shape and activity of certain cells, which might tell us something about inflammation reactions in the brain, for example. Other research has shown that these inflammation processes might be important in certain neurological conditions so it is important to measure this precisely.
What really appeals to me about this project is that it is both very technical (I for example have to think about the settings of the magnets in the MRI scanner which allow us to record specific types of data) as well as quite applied: I’m hoping that towards the end of my project I can compare the results of the new types of measurements in healthy people and people with dementia. Eventually I hope that we can demonstrate that we developed a new MRI technique that can visualize processes in dementia better, so that in the future we can better understand and hopefully prevent the processes in the brain that are involved in this disease. 

What societal/medical issue does your research address?
My research focuses on better visualization of changes in the brain that occur in neurodegenerative diseases such as dementia, but that we cannot yet see very well with MRI images. With these new techniques we hope to detect these processes earlier, which might also help with the search for medications to slow down or stop the progression of these diseases.

What do you hope to achieve during your PhD, both personally and professionally?
I hope to learn a lot about MRI and to be able to contribute to the development of novel techniques for brain imaging. Additionally I hope to be able to take part in science communication and outreach activities.

Have you had a chance to meet your colleagues yet? How has the welcome been so far?
Yes. In the LUMC, where I spend most of my time, we have a really strong community of MRI researchers who are really fun to work with! I also visit the UMCU occasionally and I’ve also had a warm welcome and I already learned a lot from the colleagues there.