A great week for science! On the 12th of June Eva Thijssen successfully defended her PhD thesis, and on the 13th of June Ahnjili Zhuparris successfully defended hers.
Eva’s thesis investigates two novel apomorphine formulations for the acute treatment of “OFF” episodes (periods during which medication is not working optimally) in Parkinson’s disease patients, aiming to provide a more user-friendly alternative than the currently available subcutaneous apomorphine injections. In addition, the usefulness of different finger tapping tasks as quick and quantitative pharmacodynamic measures for assessing the efficacy of fast-acting dopaminergic compounds is evaluated. With the results described in her thesis, she hopes to improve the quality of early phase clinical trials with novel fast-acting apomorphine formulations, ultimately resulting in better symptomatic treatment of PD. Read Eva’s full thesis here.
Ahnjili’s thesis addresses the development and validation of innovative biomarkers by harnessing the data of mobile health (mHealth) devices, such as smartphones, tablets, and wearable devices. These widely available and data-intensive technologies offer an unprecedented opportunity to capture diverse physiological and behavioral data outside the traditional clinical setting. To effectively utilize this wealth of information, Machine Learning (ML) techniques will be employed to transform the unstructured and multifaceted mHealth data into meaningful clinical biomarkers. This research aims to address the challenges, important factors, and potential benefits associated with the development and validation of mHealth biomarkers. Read Ahnjili’s full thesis here.
