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Maastricht University (UM)

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Maastricht University (UM) is the most international university in the Netherlands and, with 20,000 students and 4,400 employees, is still growing. The university stands out for its innovative education model, international character and multidisciplinary approach to research and education.

The Cardiovascular Research Institute Maastricht (CARIM) is one of the six schools of the Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences of Maastricht University and is embedded within the Maastricht University Medical Centres (MUMC). CARIM collaborates closely with the Heart+Vascular Center of MUMC. With an annual budget of more than 20 M€, CARIM is one of the largest cardiovascular research institutes in Europe, producing more than 500 scientific articles and approximately 40 PhD dissertations per year. In the last 10 years, CARIM papers were published in high-impact journals such as Cell, JAMA, Nature Medicine, New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American College of Cardiology, Circulation, and Lancet Neurology. CARIM offers a very broad range of facilities, covering the entire field of translational cardiovascular research and many internship opportunities, taking advantage of its connection with a large academic hospital. CARIM has an open and dynamic work culture in which talented and ambitious young people work side by side with renowned researchers and medical specialists.

The Maastricht Heart+Vascular Center at MUMC combines heart and vascular specialties in one coherent organization. Cardiology, cardiac Surgery, vascular surgery, vascular medicine, vascular neurology, and vascular dermatology and their related outpatient clinics, clinical and research activities are fully integrated. The Maastricht Heart+Vascular Center employs >600 people, has a clinical capacity of 110 beds and each year performs 6,100 cardiovascular procedures, including 2,000 surgical procedures, 1,150 percutaneous coronary interventions and 730 electrophysiologic ablations. The Center has a multidisciplinary outpatient clinic that serves 110,000 patients per year. There is a strong connection with Cardiovascular Radiology on cardiovascular imaging, and with CARIM on research matters.

The Division Complex Arrhythmias of the Department of Cardiology performs ~800 invasive (catheter-based) procedures per year for electrophysiologic characterization and/or ablation, and this number is growing. Of these ~83/year are VT cases.

Personnel uitklapper, klik om te openen

Prof. dr. Paul G.A. Volders

Prof. dr. Paul G.A. Volders is Professor of Genetic Cardiology at Maastricht University, a cardiologist at MUMC and Principal Investigator of CARIM. 

 

Dr. Matthijs J.M. Cluitmans, MD, PhD

Dr. Matthijs J.M. Cluitmans, MD, PhD, holds a tenure-track research position at CARIM and is also part-time employed at Philips. He is an expert in non-invasive ECG-imaging (the topic of his PhD thesis), multiscale mathematical modelling, and image integration.

Dr. Rachel ter Bekke

Dr. Rachel ter Bekke is a cardiologist/clinical electrophysiologist UM and MUMC. She is an expert in the field of catheter mapping and ablation of ventricular tachycardia, as well as other arrhythmias.

Publications uitklapper, klik om te openen

  1. ter Bekke RMA, Haugaa KH, van den Wijngaard A, et al. Electromechanical window negativity in genotyped long-QT syndrome patients: relation to arrhythmia risk. Eur Heart J 2015; 36: 179-86.
  2. Cluitmans MJM, Peeters RLM, Westra RL, et al. Non-invasive reconstruction of cardiac electrical activity: update on current methods, applications and challenges. Neth Heart J 2015; 23: 301-11.
  3. Cluitmans MJM, Bonizzi P, Karel JMH, et al. In vivo validation of electrocardiographic imaging. JACC Clin Electrophysiol 2017; 3: 232-42.
  4. Nguyên UC, Cluitmans MJM, Strik M, et al. Integration of cardiac magnetic resonance imaging, electrocardiographic imaging, and coronary venous computed tomography angiography for guidance of left ventricular lead positioning. Europace 2019; 21: 626-35.
  5. Blom LJ, Groeneveld SA, Wulterkens BM, et al. Novel use of repolarization parameters in electrocardiographic imaging to uncover arrhythmogenic substrate. J Electrocardiol 2020; 59:116-21.

Funding

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This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 945119. Follow us on Twitter and Linkedin.

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