Thursday, February 23, 2023
Medical Delta Professor of Neuroradiology Prof. dr. Marion Smits (Erasmus MC, TU Delft) receives a Vici grant from ZonMw for her research into virtual biopsy of brain tumors. This will enable her to develop an innovative line of research and expand her own research group over the next five years.
Tissue diagnosis without surgery
To obtain a proper diagnosis of a brain tumor - and to determine the optimal treatment for it - tissue currently has to be cut from the tumor: an operative biopsy. The patient must therefore undergo surgery to do so. Smits is searching for methods to make this tissue diagnosis just as well with MRI scans. Smits: “We want to use artificial intelligence to analyze very sophisticated MRI images. That would save on operations and benefit the patient.”
Smits is very pleased with the €1.5 million grant: "I have read the email a hundred times and still don't dare believe it... so unreal!"
In the video below, Smits talks about her research:
The research project is in line with the scientific program Medical Delta Cancer Diagnostics 3.0: Big Data Science of in & ex vivo Imaging of which Smits is one of the Scientific Leaders. In this program, researchers from Erasmus MC collaborate with Delft University of Technology, LUMC and De Haagse Hogeschool; in the awarded research project, Radboudumc, Amsterdam UMC, UCL London and the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York join. The patient organization Brain Injury is also affiliated.
NWO Talent Program
Vici is one of the largest person-centered scientific grants in the Netherlands and is aimed at advanced researchers. Smits is one of 34 distinguished scientists to receive a Vici this round.
Together with the Veni and Vidi grants, the Vici funding is part of the NWO Talent Program. Vici is aimed at senior researchers who have demonstrated their ability to successfully develop their own innovative line of research. In doing so, they have mentored young researchers. Researchers awarded a Vici grant further develop their research group, often in anticipation of a structural professorship position, if they would not already have one. ZonMw implements the NWO Talent Program for the Healthcare Research and Medical Sciences domain.
See also https://marionsmits.net/ and the article on Amazing Erasmus (NL).
