The audience and the speakers are not sitting in a stuffy lecture hall this evening, but among book shelves in the church that was transformed into a book store. The theme of the talks is all about ‘The fascinating world under the microscope’, or how donor cells are used to heal or prevent diseases and conditions.
Tim Wolfs talks about his research into stem cell therapy in children who have had “a poor start in life”, for example due to complications at birth. Rogier Veltrop explains how he converts blood cells into beating heart cells, and Lotte Wieten talks about the role that so-called killer cells can play in cancer treatment.
At the same time, a little further along, in Grand Café Maastricht Soiron on the Vrijthof, three other researchers speak about the theme of ‘Gender and Health’, among others about the question why women suffer from dementia more often than men. After the lectures, the audience from the Dominicanen church join those in the pub for a final drink, where they can continue to cross-examine the researchers while enjoying their drinks.
With this event, the five funds of Health Foundation Limburg - the organisation of this Night of Science - hope “to give a glimpse behind the scenes” of the research that they support. The idea is that this becomes a recurring event, which will also take place in other cities in Limburg.