CONTRAST workpackage Leaders, PhD students & Postdocs and research nurses are invited for the online CONTRAST intra-consortium meeting on 1 June 2021.

The purpose of this meeting is to bring together the CONTRAST investigators to celebrate the results we booked, discuss the progress and share best practices.

The preliminary program can be found here.

Please register online here before 25 May 2021.

The CONTRAST Young Talent Program invites all young stroke investigators (PhD students and postdocs) to join for the first CONTRAST Young Talent Meetup on April 28th, 2021 at 17:00. At this informal and virtual meetup you will get the opportunity to pitch your research, meet your peers, and discuss the challenges and opportunities all young investigators face in their careers. 

At this meeting, Jeannette Hofmeijer will talk about how she successfully combines applied clinical work with fundamental studies. Jeannette Hofmeijer was trained as a neurologist and as intensive care physician at University Medical Center Utrecht. She obtained a PhD at the Biomedical MR Imaging and Spectroscopy Group of Utrecht University on the topic of edema formation in cerebral ischemia (2007). Since 2009, she combines her work as a vascular neurologist in Rijnstate Hospital (Arnhem) with a research position at University of Twente on a 50-50 basis. She was appointed professor of Translational Neurophysiology in 2019.

Hofmeijer combines state of the art clinical studies with experimental research in in vitro and in silico models. Her group constitutes of medical doctors, technical physicians, engineers, and biologists. She believes that combining applied clinical with fundamental studies contributes to identification of clinically relevant new knowledge and technologies that will ultimately improve diagnosis and treatment of patients with cerebral ischemia.

After a short Q&A session with Jeannette we will meet-and-mingle in smaller groups. Don’t miss this unique opportunity to connect with your fellow young stroke investigators!

Please register online here before April 20th.

 The CONTRAST Young Talent Program invites all young stroke investigators (PhD students and postdocs) to join for the first CONTRAST Young Talent Meetup on January 27^th, 2021 at 17:00. At this informal and virtual meetup you will get the opportunity to pitch your research, meet your peers, and discuss the challenges and opportunities all young investigators face in their careers.  

At this meeting, Hester Lingsma, Associate Professor Medical Decision Making at Erasmus MC and workpackage leader in CONTRAST will set the stage by providing you with her perspectives on how to pursue the career you want. After a short Q&A session with Hester we will meet-and-mingle in smaller groups. Don’t miss this unique opportunity to connect with your fellow young stroke investigators! 

Please register online here before January 20th. 

On December 9th we hosted a total of 140 participants for the annual CONTRAST consortium meeting. Despite we the meeting was completely virtual we were able to pull off a great half day event with sessions on specific subjects related to acute stroke research such as: Methodology & data, Blood biomarkers, Preclinical trials, Scoring Systems and Imaging.

During the second part of the event we focused on discussing the results of the DIST pilot study, and an inspiring keynote lecture about minimally invasive surgery for ICH was delivered by Dr Christopher P Kellner of the IntraCerebral Hemorrhage program, Mt Sinai, New York. Besides providing a great overview of all the knowledge on minimally invasive surgery for ICH he also shared his knowledge and personal experience with this treatment procedure. Next, we discussed our plans for the DIST phase 3 RCT.

We look back at an inspiring event and thank all participants, hosts, chairs and speakers for their efforts! The recordings and presentations will become available via the CONTRAST website soon.

The slides and recordings are available at Rick van Nuland.

The CONTRAST Young Talent Program (YTP) aims to stimulate and support young researchers in developing and evaluating high quality innovative scientific ideas across the entire range of stroke research, both in the clinical and/or population-based setting and in preclinical research.

The CONTRAST Young Talent team received a lot of good ideas on the 2020 call for Vouchers. A total of nineteen proposals have been enthusiastically and thoroughly evaluated by a team of foreign established researchers. We are very pleased to inform you that:
Hine van Os (LUMC) is awarded a voucher to study: “Stroke Box: Post-EVT monitoring of atrial fibrillation using a novel, patient friendly wearable infrastructure“.
Magdolna Nagy (MUMC) is awarded a voucher to study: “Effect of the contact activation on ischemia-reperfusion injury in stroke patients”.

We wish the awardees a lot of success executing their voucher project!

The CONTRAST Young Talent Program (YTP) aims to stimulate and support young researchers in developing and evaluating high quality innovative scientific ideas across the entire range of stroke research, from fundamental and preclinical research, to clinical and population-based research.

We offer young talents the opportunity to apply for a voucher of EUR 50.000,-.

More information:
Call text: click here
Application Form: click here

Think outside the box and submit your idea!

Call opens on June 1st. Deadline for submission is Wednesday July 15th, 17.00 hours.

www.direct-mt.com

May 6 online at www.NEJM.org :

DIRECT MT is the first RCT clearly demonstrating that mechanical thrombectomy alone using stent retrievers is essentially equivalent to mechanical thrombectomy preceded by iv alteplase in acute ischemic stroke patients with an intracranial large vessel occlusion presenting at a comprehensive stroke center.

This high quality trial will change the landscape of acute ischemic stroke treatment globally, certainly when results are confirmed with other ongoing trials evaluating EVT alone with EVT preceded by IV alteplase (MRCLEAN NO-IV, SWIFT-DIRECT, DIRECT-SAFE and SKIP).

We would like to congratulate the DIRECT-MT investigators in China, in particular Professors Jianmin Liu and Pengfei Yang, with the results and the unprecedented highly efficient and successful execution of the trial, with inclusion of the 656 patients in 20 months in 41 centers all over China!

CONTRAST workpackage Leaders, PhD students & Postdocs, and research nurses are invited for the CONTRAST intra-consortium meeting on November 27th, 2019 in Rotterdam.

The purpose of this meeting is to bring together the CONTRAST investigators. This time we will gather for in depth discussion of scientific issues concerning microcirculation in patients with acute ischemic stroke. What is known and what is new concerning the role of coagulation cascade and cellular elements such as pericytes. How does this translate to men? We will have renowned investigators from the Netherlands and abroad who will share their knowledge and experience with us. The program can be found here.

The meeting starts at 10:00 AM with, in parallel the scientific committee meeting (for WP leaders only) and an update with tips and trick for trial research nurses and PhD students. The scientific program starts at 11:15. The meeting will be hosted at:

Arminius, congres & debatcentrum
Museumpark 3
3015 CB Rotterdam
https://arminius.nu/over-ons/

Please register here before Friday November 15 to secure your spot. We are looking forward to a great and interactive day.

The CONTRAST Young Talent Program (YTP) aims to stimulate and support young researchers in developing and evaluating high quality innovative scientific ideas across the entire range of stroke research, both in the clinical and/or population-based setting and in preclinical research.

The CONTRAST Young Talent team received a lot of good ideas on the 2019 call for Vouchers. A total of thirteen proposals have been enthusiastically and thoroughly evaluated by a team of foreign established researchers. Based on the available budget for this call for Vouchers, we were able to award a €50.000,- voucher to one clinical and one translational project. We are very pleased to inform you that:

Marc van Moorsel from the Department of Clinical Chemistry and Hematology in awarded a voucher to study: “NEUROLYSE, an innovative biochemical strategy for thrombolysis with an improved safety profile“.

Adrien Groot department of Neurology and Radiology, Amsterdam UMC is awarded a voucher to study: “Machine learning for predicting outcome in older patients after endovascular treatment”.

We wish the awardees a lot of success executing their voucher project and encourage all other young stroke researchers to apply in future calls.

Dear members of the stroke research community,

You are kindly invited for the CONTRAST consortium meeting 2019 on June 12th in Groningen. This edition is hosted at the Groninger Museum, conveniently located at walking distance from Groningen Central Station.

Focus: This edition will focus on the logistics and epidemiology of stroke care in the Netherlands and promises to become an interactive and inspirational day. The CONTRAST WP8 researchers will be your hosts and will challenge you to discuss the organizational models for IAT in the Netherlands in an interactive workshop setting. You will also get updated on the progression of the consortium in the pre-clinical and clinical workpackages during the lunch break and throughout the day there will be ample room for discussion and networking.

Keynotes: We are happy to announce that Prof. Jeffrey Saver, Neurologist, Associate Vice Chair, Director Clinical Neurotherapeutics Research Center, Dept of Neurology van University College Los Angeles has agreed to provide a keynote lecture on the organization and developments of acute stroke care in the USA. Additionally, Dr. Thomas Monks, Principal Research Fellow in Operational Research and Data Science of University of Southampton will provide an overview of the approach taken in the UK within the NHS system.

Program: The complete program can be found here. Accreditation will be requested for NvN, NVvR, NVvN and VSR.

Registration: Please register by filling out the form. Please do so before Monday June 3rd.

We hope to see you all on June 12th in Groningen!