Waasdorp, Van der Voort and Bloemberg winners of the Young Medical Delta Thesis Awards 2021

The Young Medical Delta Thesis Awards 2021 were won by Rick Waasdorp (best Master's thesis), Sebastian van der Voort (best PhD thesis) and Jette Bloemberg (public award). The jury, consisting of prof. Dr. Frans van der Helm (TU Delft, LUMC), prof. Dr. Wiro Niessen (Erasmus MC, TU Delft), dr. Ir. Frans van Nieuwpoort (University of Leiden) and dr. Maike van Offeren (Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences) announced the winners during the online award ceremony last night.

The judges noticed that each of the finalists had put the patient at the center of their study and that the studies were of a high standard. Ultimately, the choice for the best Master's thesis fell to Rick Waasdorp (TU Delft). For his graduation research, Waasdorp developed a non-invasive and relatively inexpensive method to gain more insight into the course of diseases such as Duchenne. Previously, Waasdorp already won the IMDI ​​Talent Prize from ZonMW. He is currently working on his PhD Medical Imaging at TU Delft for the scientific program Medical Delta UltraHB.

Sebastian van der Voort (Erasmus MC) won the PhD Thesis Award with his dissertation 'Eye to AI - MR Imaging analysis of glioma using machine learning'. For his dissertation, Van der Voort investigated the possibilities of non-invasively visualizing the diagnosis and development of gliomas using imaging techniques and machine learning. Van der Voort is a consortium member of the scientific program Medical Delta Cancer Diagnostics 3.0

Audience Award for Wasp Inspired Research Needle

The more than 90 online attendees were given the opportunity to choose what they thought was the best survey. After the finalists pitched their research, the audience chose Jette Bloemberg (TU Delft). She developed a prototype of a needle that can diagnose prostate cancer in a more patient-friendly way with the support of MRI images. She was inspired by the way in which a specific wasp-like stings. Just like last year, the award ceremony took place online. The presentation was preceded by a keynote by Medical Delta professor Prof. Wiro Niessen (Erasmus MC, TU Delft). In addition to the honor, the winners will receive a cash prize for their winning studies.