Meet the visioneer - A PhD perspective

"Seven years ago, through a scholarship from the Flemish government, I landed at Hasselt University for my master's degree in Biostatistics," Murih explains. "My background was already in statistics and I knew that this university had several renowned professors working in biostatistics, so I was very happy with the scholarship and the opportunity to study in Belgium. At some point, my supervisor at the university sent an email to some students about a PhD opportunity around research on statistical modelling for health applications. I found that very interesting and so I applied. During my selection interview, I met my VITO supervisor Gökhan Ertaylan and he told me what VITO is and does. I was immediately captivated and so my career at VITO started. 

From research to (medical) practice: patent is pending 

My PhD was a VITO pilot project where one of the goals was to develop statistical methods to help clinical doctors interpret laboratory test results of their patients in a more personalised way. To do this, we collected longitudinal data from healthy individuals. Then, when a doctor receives test results from the laboratory for example, the method we developed can put those results alongside other data from that patient, such as age, gender or previous test results, for example. We can then combine all that data to achieve a personalised patient-level normal value. The algorithm I developed together with my promoters for this has even led to a patent application, and now our business developer is actively assisting in its valorisation. Hopefully it will be approved and I will soon be able to see my research work translated into practice. That is one of the things I like about VITO: there is a real focus on practical applications and valorisation of research and that motivates me even more. 

Impact on personalised medicine 

Hence, I am also very happy with the opportunity to continue my PhD research at VITO. I am currently doing a Postdoc that builds on the earlier research of my PhD. While that mainly involved clinical data from laboratory tests (glucose, cholesterol, etc.), I am now focusing more on the molecular level, more specifically proteins or as it is called "proteomics research". Proteomics is the large-scale study of proteins. This type of data continues to grow and many researchers now want to extract insights from it.

We are now examining data from biobanks, which contain a lot of data from both healthy people and people with diseases or immune disorders. We examine their proteomics profiles and try to mine and model information from them. Proteomics data is huge and complex, it has many dimensions and there is still a lot of 'noise'. Here we are trying to find out information through data mining that can help convert the proteomics data into real clinical interpretations and diagnoses. With this Postdoc, I hope to make an impact in the field of personalised medicine. 

Stimulating environment for researchers at VITO  

My Postdoc will now run for another two years, but I definitely see myself continuing in research after that. I am convinced that there are many more research opportunities, and I would also really like to be able to collaborate with other units or teams within VITO.

Since the corona pandemic, I come to Mol one or two days a week, a commute of about 45 minutes by train and another 15 minutes or so by bus. Since the restructuring of our research unit, our team has grown bigger and bigger, creating 'sub-teams' within our main team. On contact days in Mol, we usually have team meetings and also meet with the sub-teams to discuss our research progress in different topics. It's very nice to meet people from another team within the same unit. We help each other or exchange ideas about our ongoing projects. This makes multidisciplinary cooperation easier. I also like that at VITO; there are so many diverse and interesting research areas and projects, even within our own unit. In addition, the people who work here are also all very friendly, helpful and open. The whole environment is stimulating and ideal for a researcher. There is still a lot to discover!"