The winner of the Hugo van Poelgeest Award has been announced! Niels Harlaar can now call himself the scientist of the future. Through his development of new human heart models, laboratory animals can be replaced in heart research. On Friday, November the 18th, he accepted the award during our event Toekomstproef.
About the winner
The Hugo van Poelgeest Award is the oldest Dutch award for animal-free research. With the award we want to support young scientists in their animal-free research and motivate future scientists to follow their example.
Niels Harlaar won this prize in 2022. He is a researcher and studying to become a physician at the LUMC. He received a grant from the LUMC for outstanding students to do PhD research alongside his medical studies. Niels is working on the development of new human heart models to replace laboratory animals in heart disease research. He developed an inexhaustible source of human heart muscle cells. This enabled him to more accurately mimic atrial fibrillation – the most common cardiac arrhythmia – in the laboratory, than by using laboratory animal models. During the Toekomstproef event in Beeld & Geluid Den Haag, together with Stichting Bouwstenen voor Dierenwelzijn we awarded him with €3,000 so he can continue his animal-free research.Â
Want to know more about Niels’ research? Watch this video
The audience award
In addition to the jury prize, there was also an audience award, which included a prize of €1,500. We asked you to vote on the website. And you did! The winner of the audience award was Valentina Palacio-Castañeda. In her non-animal research, she uses organs-on-chips to study the applications of new therapeutic proteins. These specific proteins fight diseases in innovative ways. She mainly focuses on proteins that can treat cancer and at some point can – hopefully – cure it.
Valentina Palacio-Castañeda
Toekomstproef event
This year’s Hugo van Poelgeest Award ceremony was at the Beeld en Geluid museum in The Hague. During this free event, visitors were able to talk to each other about, and hear about lab-animal-free innovations. There was a panel that spoke about the future of animal-free research, Berend van Meer – the 2020 winner – gave a lecture on organs-on-chips, the award ceremony took place and we concluded with drinks. In our humble opinion, the day was more than successful.
Victoria de Leeuw
Alongside Niels and Valentina, we would also like to thank the third nominee for her commitment and motivation. Victoria de Leeuw is working on an important transition to animal-free safety assessment of chemicals and medication for humans. All three nominees are conducting innovative research within the life sciences. We hope that future scientists will follow your example.
Below you can find the pictures from the event. Can you spot yourself?
Below you can find the pictures from the event. Can you spot yourself?
