Dr. Guuske Busscher is managing director of the Big Chemistry national growth fund. In this role, Dr. Busscher has a thorough insight into academic and industrial knowledge valorization. After a PhD in organic chemistry from the Radboud University, Dr. Busscher held various scientific positions at Johnson & Johnson, DSM and Aspen, after which she transitioned into business development at the Brightlands Maastricht Health Campus. She is also co-founder and CTO of BioMosae and holds an MBA from TiasNimbas.
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Dr. Axel Straube is the Editor in Chief of ChemPlusChem and one of the Deputy Editors for Chemistry – A European Journal (Wiley-VCH GmbH, Weinheim, Germany). Before joining Wiley-VCH in 2021, Axel studied chemistry at Leipzig University (Germany) and Cardiff University (Wales, UK) with a brief placement at Uppsala Universitet (Sweden) and completed his PhD on redox-switchable homogeneous catalysis in the group of Evamarie Hey-Hawkins. He’s an advocate for Open Science and DE&I efforts in STEM.
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Dr. Henk-Jan van Manen, researcher at Nouryon and chair of Dutch Programme Council Chemical Sensing & Enabling Technologies, studied chemistry at the University of Twente and defended his PhD thesis in 2001 at that same university under supervision of Prof. Dr. David Rein, with whom he worked functional metallodendrimers. During his post-doctoral research at the University of Twente and the MPI for Biophysical Chemistry, Dr. Van Manen developed various analytical techniques for disease detection. In 2007, Dr. Van Manen joined Akzo Nobel as research scientist and has been working there as team leader in the process analysis department. Since 2020, Dr. Van Manen is responsible for driving continuous improvement in analytical chemistry within Nouryon and has been focusing on the use of AI to accelerate discovery and development within Nouryon.
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Dr. Ralf Boland is a team leader and contact person for Open Science at NWO. With a PhD from Leiden University’s Institute of Biology, Dr. Boland has a strong background in natural sciences and joined NWO in 2019 as program officer, where he was, among others, responsible for organizing CHAINS, the Dutch biggest Dutch chemistry conference.
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Prof. Patricia Dankers is professor in Biomedical Materials & Chemistry at the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). She studied chemistry in Nijmegen, The Netherlands. Her PhD studies were performed at TU/e in the group of prof. E.W. (Bert) Meijer, on supramolecular biomaterials (2006). She worked for SupraPolix, and the University Medical Center, Groningen. Her second PhD thesis work was performed in medical sciences on kidney regenerative medicine, in Groningen (2013). She worked at Northwestern University, Chicago, USA (2010). She climbed every step on the academic ladder, starting in 2008, ending in 2017 as full professor. She received Veni, Vidi & Vici (2008, 2017, 2023) and ERC starting & ERC PoC (2012, 2017) grants. She has been awarded the KNCV Gold Medal (2020) and the Ammodo Award for Fundamental Science (2021). She is a co-founder of the spin-off companies UPyTher (2020) and VivArt-X (2022), and the Helmond Biotech-materials Hub (HBH, 2023). She is one of the founders of the Research Center for Interactive Polymer Materials (IPM) in Eindhoven, funded by a Gravitation Grant (2022).
