Symposium: May 25th, 2023
Amsterdam University Medical Centre
9:30am – 3:30pm | Reception to follow
Funded by:
Personalized Genomics and the Future of Congenital Heart Disease: A Spotlight on Early Careers
The ERA-PerMed funded PROCEED (PeRsOnalized Genomics for CongEnital HEart Disease) consortium is pleased to host a scientific symposium on personalized medicine in congenital heart disease with a special focus on tetralogy of Fallot and transposition of the great arteries. The symposium will bring together researchers and collaborators from Canada, Germany, the Netherlands and Australia to discuss exciting new approaches to applying genomics and AI to the care of children with congenital heart disease.
This year, our trainees and early career investigators take center stage and shine a spotlight on their exciting and innovative discoveries.
Learn more about the transatlantic PROCEED project here.
Symposium Chairs: Drs Connie Bezzina, Marc-Philip Hitz and Seema Mital
Symposium Organizers: Dr Alex Postma and Jade Bouwmeester
Symposium Schedule
Please find the draft symposium schedule, be sure to check back regularly for the most up to date talk information!
Complimentary coffee, lunch and drinks will be provided throughout the event.
Location:
de Vrijzaal, G0-209
Amsterdam UMC, location AMC
Meibergdreef 15, 1105AZ, Amsterdam
Directions:
To Amsterdam UMC: We would advise coming by metro as its quick and convenient. Take metro 54 in the direction of “Gein”. The hospital is located at the “Holendrecht” stop, which is about 10 minutes from the city center. You can follow the crowd to get to the exit (most of them are students or staff going to the hospital) and you should see the hospital from there.
To Symposium Room: Enter via the main entrance (through the newly built garden area) and go to the reception desk. Take a left past the reception and walk through the long corridor. At the end of the corridor you reach a large square and you should take a right here (at the hair salon) and walk about 20 meters. On your left is the “de Vrijzaal” (G0-209).
Meet the Faculty
Jeroen Bakkers, PhD
Hubrecht InstituteJeroen Bakkers, PHD
Jeroen Bakkers is group leader at the Hubrecht Institute and professor of Molecular Cardiogenetics at the University Medical Center Utrecht. His group uses the zebrafish (Danio rerio) as a model system to study various processes. The research lines of the Bakkers group include unraveling the genetics of normal cardiac development and body axis formation during development, investigating the molecular mechanisms of heart regeneration in the zebrafish and how this can be compared to heart injury in the mammals, and modeling of human (cardiac) disease in the zebrafish to unravel biological mechanisms behind the disease and to identify new drug targets.
Connie Bezzina, PhD
Amsterdam University Medical CenterConnie Bezzina, PhD
Connie Bezzina is Professor of Molecular Cardiogenetics at the Amsterdam University Medical Center. She conducts genetic studies in patients with inherited cardiac disorders, considering the broad spectrum of genetic complexity, ranging from monogenic to polygenic.
Jade Bouwmeester
The Hospital for Sick ChildrenJade Bouwmeester
Jade Bouwmeester is a clinical research project manager for Dr. Seema Mital and the Heart Centre Biobank Registry at SickKids Hospital. She facilitates the recruitment and sample collection of cardiac patients and their families for research. Jade provides clinical research support for congenital heart disease research studies which are run in collaboration with Heart Centre Biobank.
Jeroen Breckpot, MD PhD
Leuven University HospitalJeroen Breckpot, MD PhD
Jeroen Breckpot works as a clinical geneticist in the Center for Human Genetics with a special interest in prenatal diagnostics, syndromology and cardiogenetics. He a Tenure Track Professor at the Catholic University Leuven (KUL) where he obtained his PhD degree in Biomedical Sciences with a thesis entitled ‘Copy Number Variation in Congenital Heart Defects’. His current research program at the Department of Human Genetics in Leuven targets the genomic background of CHD and developmental disorders, and focuses on the identification of genetic modifiers underlying phenotypic variability of these disorders.
Gregor Dombrowsky
University Hospital OldenburgGregor Dombrowsky
Gregor Dombrowsky studied Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Christian-Albrechts-University in Kiel, Germany. In 2018, Gregor started his PhD in the lab group of Prof. Marc-Phillip Hitz at the University Medical Center Schleswig Holstein where he has been working on the genetic contribution to congenital heart defects. In the beginning of 2022, Gregor transferred along with Prof. Hitz to the University Clinic in Oldenburg, Germany where he works as a molecular geneticist.
Nour Hanafi
The Hospital for Sick ChildrenNour Hanafi
Nour Hanafi studied Molecular Biology and Medical Genomics at the University of Toronto, and is now a Programmer/Analyst at the Centre for Computational Medicine at SickKids Hospital. She works in collaboration with Dr. Seema Mital’s research group in analyzing the whole genome data of patients with congenital heart disease, with a focus on structural and copy number variation.
Marc-Phillip Hitz, MD PhD
University Hospital OldenburgMarc-Phillip Hitz, MD PhD
Prof. Dr. Marc-Phillip Hitz is a paediatrician and clinical geneticist. Marc is the director of the University Institute of Medical Genetics at Oldenburg Hospital as well as the Professor of Medical Genetics at the School of Medicine and Health Sciences at Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg. His research focuses on the application of innovative technologies for improving the diagnosis and treatment of structural heart defects.
Najim Lahrouchi, MD PhD
Amsterdam University Medical CenterYour Content Goes Here
Najim Lahrouchi is a postdoctoral researcher in the Amsterdam UMC, The Netherlands. He obtained his PhD in human genetics in the group of Prof. Connie Bezzina and combines research with clinical training in pediatrics. He aims to increase the diagnostic yield of genetic testing in congenital heart disease to enhance genetic classification and individualized longitudinal clinical care of patients
Raj Lalli, MD
The Hospital for Sick ChildrenRaj Lalli, MD
Raj Lalli completed his Paediatrics training at Western University in London, Canada. He began his Paediatric Cardiology training at SickKids Hospital in July 2022. Under Dr. Mital, he has participated in research into the genetic contributions of structural heart disease.
Robert Lesurf, PhD
The Hospital for Sick ChildrenRobert Lesurf, PhD
Robert Lesurf is a Senior Bioinformatician and Data Scientist with the Mital lab at The Hospital for Sick Children. He uses genome sequencing and machine learning approaches to investigate causes of childhood heart disease. His goals are to understand how genetic variants influence disease severity and outcome, to use this knowledge to inform the clinical care of children with heart disease, and ultimately to discover new therapies for pediatric heart failure.
Katie Losenno, MD
The Hospital for Sick ChildrenKatie Losenno, MD
Dr. Kaite Losenno is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada in Pediatrics. She received her medical degree from the University of Limerick in Ireland in 2017. She returned to her hometown of Toronto to complete her Pediatric Residency and Pediatric Cardiology Fellowship at SickKids Hospital. She also has a Master’s degree in Clinical Anatomy from the University of Western Ontario where she was an anatomy lecturer for the Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry. Her academic interest includes bicuspid aortic valves, aortopathies and the genetic determinants of these diseases.
Seema Mital, MD
The Hospital for Sick ChildrenSeema Mital, MD
Dr. Seema Mital is a Staff Cardiologist & the Head of Cardiovascular Research at SickKids, Professor of Paediatrics at the University of Toronto, and a Senior Scientist at the SickKids Research Institute. She is the Program Lead for PROCEED, is the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada / Robert M Freedom Chair of Cardiovascular Science, and the Scientific Co-Lead of the Ted Rogers Centre for Heart Research.
Alex Postma, PhD
Amsterdam University Medical CenterAlex Postma, PhD
Alex V Postma is an assistant professor at the departments of Medical Biology and Clinical Genetics of the Amsterdam UMC, the Netherlands. His aim is to identify the underlying genetic causes in rare (congenital) diseases in order to better understand the pathophysiology of the disease and help improve genetic counselling and therapy. Recent work focused on congenital heart disease, specifically the genetics of tetralogy of Fallot and the transposition of the great arteries.
Doris Škorić-Milosavljević, MD
Amsterdam University Medical CenterDoris Škorić-Milosavljević, MD
Doris Škorić-Milosavljević is a M.D. and PhD candidate at Prof. Bezzina’s lab in the Amsterdam University Medical Center and studies the genetics of congenital heart disease, by performing both genome-wide association studies in large patient cohorts as well as family based sequencing studies. In January 2021 she started her training to become a clinical geneticist at the department of Human Genetics of the Amsterdam University Medical Center.
David Winlaw, MD
Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical CenterDavid Winlaw, MD
Dr. David Winlaw is a pediatric cardiac surgeon at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, and Professor in Surgery at University of Cincinnati, Ohio, USA with an interest in the genetic contribution to structural heart disease and its impacts on early and late outcomes after neonatal surgery.
Saskia van der Crabben, MD
Amsterdam University Medical CenterSaskia van der Crabben, MD
Saskia van der Crabben is clinical geneticist working in Cardiogenetics at Amsterdam UMC. She has a background in dysmorphology and inborn errors of metabolism; within cardiogenetics her main fields of interest are: cardiac arrhythmias, sudden cardiac death and congenital heart diseases.