A.A. Ramkisoensing

After finishing medical school and my masters in Biomedical Sciences, the decision to do a PhD at the laboratory of Experimental Cardiology was easily made. It gave me the opportunity to broaden my knowledge and skills in the field of cardiovascular stem cell biology without losing touch with the clinic. My PhD training mainly focused on unraveling environmental, molecular and genetic determinants of cardiac differentiation of human mesenchymal stem cells. Here you can find my full thesis.

Through these studies I came to realize that for cardiac regeneration by cell transplantation, not only the effects of the transplanted cells on host damage tissue are important, but that the effects of this host tissue on the guest cells (especially in terms of differentiation) is equally, or even more, important in steering the therapeutic potential. Currently, however, this aspect of cardiac regenerative medicine has been poorly investigated, due to a lack of dedicated research tools.

After finishing my PhD training in late 2012, I entered the cardiology training program of the LUMC. In May 2014, I defended my thesis and obtained by PhD, while continuing my cardiology residency at the Rijnland Hospital in Leiderdorp. In returned to the LUMC in 2016. Here I will complete my training in early 2019 to become a cardiologist specialized in non-invasive imaging, while focusing on my pre-clinical research projects. With this combination I aim to serve the patient's best interest with today's clinical options, while contributing to the development and implementation of those of tomorrow.