Top international researchers speak at Research Week

Dr. professor Ulrich Dirnagl, Charité- Universitätsmedizin Berlin.

Recent advances in biomedical research provide innumerable opportunities to develop novel preventive and therapeutic strategies. However, only a small fraction of biomedical discoveries are successfully translated into clinical applications. Potential ‘breakthrough’ therapies, which are spectacularly successful in animal models of disease, often fail in clinical trials. This translational bottleneck imposes burdens on research and healthcare systems, as well as patients who participate in trials of novel strategies.  

The high attrition rate of preclinical to clinical development may directly relate to concerns about the reliability and reproducibility of biomedical research. In the presentation Ulrich willpresent a set of behaviours, activities and research practices, some of which may be relevant to yourown work and which present prime targets for improvement. He will end by introducing the QUESTCenter for Transforming Biomedical Research at the Charité/BIH to specifically point out some of itsservices and trainings which may be of interest to you. 

Dr. professor JJM van Delden, Julius Center, University Medical Center, Utrecht, The Netherlands.

The debate about the acceptability of (medical) assistance in dying is worldwide. It is often a heated debate in which all sorts of assumptions about effects and developments are made. The Netherlands was the first country in the world to legislate euthanasia and assisted suicide, if performed by a physician according to certain criteria of due care.

The Netherlands is also the only country with a wealth of data about end of life decision making. As such the Netherlands can be regarded as a societal laboratory from which the world can learn what to do and what not to do. 

In this lecture Hans will discuss the euthanasia law that came into effect in 2002 and the way that societal control (eg by means of the euthanasia assessment committees) is shaped. He will present the results of large nation-wide studies performed in the Netherlands between 1990 and 2022. Hans will show the trends in incidences of end of life decisions such as euthanasia, assisted suicide, palliative sedation and non-treatment decisions in medical practice in the Netherlands.

The last part of this lecture will be devoted to the question whether the Netherlands have created a system that is ready for the future. From this it can be shown what positive and negative lessons can be learned from the Netherlands. This may help other countries to formulate their own answers, attuned to their own contexts, to pressing societal questions about the acceptability of assistance in dying. 

Maunank Shah, Center for TB Research and Center for Clinical Global Health Education, Johns Hopkins University.

Dr. Shah is an Associate Professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and Department of Epidemiology in the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.  He is Medical Director of the Baltimore Tuberculosis Program, and is President of the US National Society of Tuberculosis Clinicians.   

Dr. Shah’s research involves evaluating and implementing novel HIV and tuberculosis (TB) intervention strategies in both low and high-incidence settings. He has evaluated new TB diagnostic technologies and assessed the cost-effectiveness of emerging strategies for HIV and TB care in multiple locations.  He led the evidence review for the WHO Guideline Development Group for usage of Urinary LAM for diagnosis of TB, and is formerly the Maryland site PI for the CDC TB Epidemiologic Studies Consortium. 

He is co-inventor of the electronic directly observed therapy platform used in more than 500 health departments in the US (www.emocha.com), and has led development and implementation of an online electronic TB consultation platform for the CDC funded TB Centers of Excellence (IDcrowd; rutgers.idcrowd.org).  Dr. Shah serves as the Deputy Editor for the primary clinical journal of the Infectious Diseases Society of America--Clinical Infectious Diseases (CID).