“When I start something, I want to make the most out of it. I definitely applied that to my PhD research. I used computer models to describe and predict the way a medicine would behave in the human body. In my case, this involved radioactive therapy administered to prostate cancer patients. The patient receives these medications through an injection. What's unique about these medicines is that they naturally seek out the tumor, and are labeled in such a way that they target it with radiation. Unfortunately this can also affect certain healthy cells, such as those of the salivary gland, which is the root cause of a common side effect: a dry mouth. In my models, I use known characteristics like age, weight, and PSA value, as well as data from scans, to show how the medication is distributed throughout the body. This provides us with a tool that can predict the efficacy of treatment with radioactive medicines. I'm not done yet: I'm going to continue working in Amsterdam to improve my models even further and personalize them even further. Because I feel there's even more potential in them.”
Hinke will defend her thesis on November 2.
prof. dr. A.D.R. Huitema & prof. dr. J.H. Beijnen
dr. J.J.M.A. Hendrikx & dr. B.J. De Wit-Van der Veen