iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Sander W van der Laan @swvanderlaan.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

Tim Peters presenting our early results from genome-wide cis-eQTL analysis in 1,000+ atherosclerotic #plaques. Many #CAD associated loci have an eQTL in plaques. More to follow in the coming months. #DAS2026 @umcutrecht.bsky.social #genetics #atherosclerosis #eqtl

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Sander W van der Laan @swvanderlaan.bsky.social · 22/05/2026

Athens, here I come! 🏛️🇬🇷 Excited to be attending the #EAS2026! Check out the talks and (e)posters based on AtheroExpress data. 💙 Also, register at www.atheroportal.nl for your access to #AtheroPortal. Come see 👉 invt.io/1ixb9duabzn #EAS2026 #Atherosclerosis #Athens #AtheroExpress #AtheroPortal

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Elisabeth Bik @elisabethbik.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

After lunch, Inge Stegeman, with "Open Science to Increase Reproducibility in Science: The OSIRIS Project" - osiris4r.eu Is Open Science going to solve all our problems with reproducibility? Are there benefits or harms? Let's study this! We got funding and a good group from all over Europe #WCRI2026

Speaker on the left, her title slide on the right

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Eric Topol @erictopol.bsky.social · 05/05/2026

Yes again. Last week CDC. Now FDA. Blocking evidence of vaccine safety. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/05/u...

nytimes.com

F.D.A. Blocked Publication of Research Finding Covid and Shingles Vaccines Were Safe

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Sander W van der Laan @swvanderlaan.bsky.social · 04/05/2026

8/8 Supported in part by the EU Pathfinder MIRACLE and HealthHolland 'Getting the Perfect Image' projects. 🔗 uefconnect.uef.fi/en/miracle Explore the portal: 👉 www.atheroportal.nl #Atherosclerosis #OpenScience #FAIR #CardiovascularResearch

uefconnect.uef.fi

MIRACLE - UEFConnect

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Sander W van der Laan @swvanderlaan.bsky.social · 04/05/2026

7/8 This democratizes plaque data in a user-friendly way — enabling researchers who lack the skills to analyze different data modalities to pursue their interests. Transparency, reproducibility, collaboration. In line with the #FAIR principles of #OpenScience.

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Sander W van der Laan @swvanderlaan.bsky.social · 04/05/2026

6/8 Who can access: 🔬 Academic researchers — register, share background & purpose, get approved. 🏢 Industry — access only after a public-private partnership agreement with our partner AtheroScreen, case-by-case: 🔗 www.atheroscreen.nl

atheroscreen.nl

AtheroScreen - Human data-driven prediction and validation of cardiovascular drug effects

AtheroScreen provides rapid, decision-ready biological evidence for cardiovascular drug targets - grounded in real human diseased tissue and patient outcomes.

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Sander W van der Laan @swvanderlaan.bsky.social · 04/05/2026

5/8 ⚠️ Important: AtheroPortal exposes only aggregate, summary-level results. No individual-level (per-patient) data are accessible through the portal at any time. For individual-level data or samples, apply through Athero-Express' formal procedure and Dataverse: 🔗 doi.org/10.34894/4IKE3T

doi.org

Athero-Express Biobank Study (database including clinical data)

Background The Athero-Express Biobank Study (AE) started in 2002 and now includes over 3,500 patients who underwent surgery to remove atherosclerot...

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Sander W van der Laan @swvanderlaan.bsky.social · 04/05/2026

4/8 What AtheroPortal does: Enter a gene or target of interest → retrieve the full range of aggregate associations across the cohort: expression patterns, genotype-phenotype associations, links to plaque morphology. The human-tissue context for your cell/mouse findings.

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Sander W van der Laan @swvanderlaan.bsky.social · 04/05/2026

3/8 Athero-Express is one of the largest biobanks of human atherosclerotic plaques worldwide, with extensive clinical and phenotypic data. Each plaque is linked to patient information, histology, and increasingly to genomic, transcriptomic, and proteomic readouts. 🔗 www.atheroexpress.nl

atheroexpress.nl

Athero-Express - Deeper Insights in Genetic Research

atheroexpress.nl

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Sander W van der Laan @swvanderlaan.bsky.social · 04/05/2026

2/8 Why human plaques matter: #Atherosclerosis is often asymptomatic but can present acutely as a heart attack or stroke. The effects of genes identified in mouse models can rarely be confirmed at scale through human genetic studies — so researchers seek validation in human lesions.

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Sander W van der Laan @swvanderlaan.bsky.social · 04/05/2026

1/8 🚀 AtheroPortal is now live! A centralized platform for exploring atherosclerotic plaque and clinical data, transcriptomics, and advanced analyses from the Athero-Express Biobank Study. 👉 www.atheroportal.nl

atheroportal.nl

AtheroPortal | Plaque Multi-Omics

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Sander W van der Laan @swvanderlaan.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

Glad I am not the only one just slightly 🤏 annoyed by this🤌...

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Sander W van der Laan @swvanderlaan.bsky.social · 05/03/2026

Just out. Genetically determined ancestry is associated with different plaque morphology and molecular features. In collaboration with @clintomics.bsky.social. @eassociety.bsky.social @umcutrecht.bsky.social #uva #plaque #atherosclerosis #GWAS #GeneSky doi.org/10.1016/j.at...

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Mike Inouye @mikeinouye.bsky.social · 06/09/2025

👇👇👇 deadline for applying to this awesome opportunity is coming up on Friday Sept 12th! www.baker.edu.au/career/head-...

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Sander W van der Laan @swvanderlaan.bsky.social · 25/08/2025

Fed up with these invites for reviews from journals no-one reads nor is interested in. I have no high hopes... #reviewing #predatoryjournals #academia

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Yuri Milaneschi @ymilaneschi.bsky.social · 15/07/2025

🚨 Preprint Alert 🚨 "Major depression and atherosclerotic disease: linking shared genetics to pathways in blood, brain, heart, and atherosclerotic plaques. " 🧠🫀🩸 The title says it all. Great collaboration with @swvanderlaan.bsky.social . 📄 Read it here: bit.ly/4eTM8T2

bit.ly

Major depression and atherosclerotic disease: Linking shared genetics to pathways in blood, brain, heart, and atherosclerotic plaques

Background The increased risk of atherosclerotic diseases (stroke, coronary artery disease [CAD]) observed in depression may stem from shared pathophysiology. We examined whether: 1) major depression ...

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Daniel MacPhee 🇨🇦 @d-macphee.bsky.social · 17/04/2025

“Research-integrity analysts are warning that ‘journal snatchers’ — companies that acquire scholarly journals from reputable publishers — are turning legitimate titles into predatory, low-quality publications with questionable practices” #HigherEd #Journals 🧪 #Research www.nature.com/articles/d41...

nature.com

Invasion of the ‘journal snatchers’: the firms that buy science publications and turn them rogue

Study finds dozens of journals that have hiked their fees and started churning out papers after being acquired by small, recently formed companies.

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Sander W van der Laan @swvanderlaan.bsky.social · 18/03/2025

Tim Peters wrote a ✨ great blogpost ✨in laymen's terms on our paper. Check it out here 👉🏽 www.vanderlaanscience.nl/news/phenomicl

lnkd.in

This link will take you to a page that’s not on LinkedIn

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Sander W van der Laan @swvanderlaan.bsky.social · 14/03/2025

And also very grateful to be part of #AtheroNETH. www.vanderlaanscience.nl/news/atheron... This major project is truly a remarkable collaboration involving researchers from all major university medical centers in The Netherlands. #TeamScience #Hartstichting

vanderlaanscience.nl

AtheroNETH — Van der Laan & Science

AtheroNETH: finding biomarkers and druggable targets for personalized primary prevention.

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Clint Miller @clintomics.bsky.social · 07/03/2025

Excited to finally share our work on attention-based multiple instance learning to quantify and characterize intraplaque haemorrhage in carotid plaque whole slide images from >2500 patients in AtheroExpress. Fun collaboration with @swvanderlaan.bsky.social and Craig Glastonbury labs.

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Sander W van der Laan @swvanderlaan.bsky.social · 07/03/2025

5/ 🙏🏽 Special thanks to our 💫 collaborators at @umcutrecht.bsky.social (Tim Peters), the University of Virginia #UVA (@clintomics.bsky.social, Yipei Song), and @humantechnopole.bsky.social (Francesco Cisternino & Craig Glastonbury) for their invaluable contributions 🫶🏽💪🏽! #ResearchCollaboration /end🧵

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Sander W van der Laan @swvanderlaan.bsky.social · 07/03/2025

4/ This advancement helps link IPH to key clinical outcomes and understand its biological mechanism, advancing cardiovascular care and research. 💙 Discover our study 🔗 doi.org/10.1101/2025... #CardioResearch #AIinHealthcare

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Sander W van der Laan @swvanderlaan.bsky.social · 07/03/2025

3/ Our model precisely localises IPH within plaques, quantifying its area and facilitating downstream analyses of its association with clinical 🩺 outcomes and molecular 🧬 features.

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Sander W van der Laan @swvanderlaan.bsky.social · 07/03/2025

2/ With data from the @atheroexpress, we developed a framework to analyse whole-slide images🔬 for better IPH detection and analysis. 📊 H&E staining showed strong results, and combining it with other stains further improved accuracy.

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Sander W van der Laan @swvanderlaan.bsky.social · 07/03/2025

🚀 Thrilled to announce our latest #preprint on intraplaque haemorrhage (IPH) quantification and molecular 🧬characterisation of carotid plaques using deep learning. A thread 🧵👇🏽

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medRxivpreprint @medrxivpreprint.bsky.social · 06/03/2025

Intraplaque haemorrhage quantification and molecular characterisation using attention based multiple instance learning www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/202…

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Bas Heijne @basheijne.bsky.social · 28/02/2025

'Exploiteren wij/zij-denken, ontmenselijken minderheden, verspreiden complottheorieën, hameren op vijandbeelden, je minder radicaal voordoen dan je bent, opjutten jongeren, heldenverering, ondermijnen rechtsstaat, kritiek verdacht maken, verzet kop indrukken – herkenbaar?' www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2025/...

nrc.nl

Lessen trekken uit het nazisme: menselijk fatsoen blijkt uiterst fragiel

Geschiedenis: Een groot kenner van de geschiedenis van het nazisme laat zien: de mentaliteit en de technieken van Hitler en consorten zijn allesbehalve verleden tijd. The Nazi Mind zou ons aan het den...

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Holden Thorp @holdenthorp.bsky.social · 01/03/2025

Leaders have been saying "let's make every scientists a communicator" for decades. I'd say we have evidence that isn't the answer. It's an example of the scholastic fallacy - which says scientists think everyone thinks about things the same way we do.

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Sander W van der Laan @swvanderlaan.bsky.social · 01/03/2025

What about the many science tv and streaming services shows? You know, the likes of David Attenborough and Stephen Hawking, for example? Discovery Channel? And all those different magazines for all ages and subgroups? Wikipedia for years? And now ChatGPT? Seems #Science is more accessible than ever…

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Acemsdavis @suzincenac.bsky.social · 01/03/2025

There is strong evidence of Russian intervention and influence in recent Western voting - not least in the USA with the election of a president who echoes Russian propaganda, fires military top brass, weakens alliances, threatens neighbours,, drops cyber security against Russia and bullies Ukraine.

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Hans de Jonge @hldejonge.bsky.social · 10/02/2025

To what extent do researchers funded by Dutch Research Council NWO and ZonMw share the research data and code underlying their publications? Today we published an analysis based on 10.000+ papers using the open source tool Grobid: www.nwo.nl/en/news/shar... All underlying data openly available!

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Sander W van der Laan @swvanderlaan.bsky.social · 08/01/2025

Interessant. Ik bedenk mij ook dat mensen allerlei labels geven niet perse helpt ('rechts-radicaal', 'linkse rakker', etc). En dat geldt dan voor alle betrokken partijen. Waarom zou de een dan nog met ander willen praten, of andersom? www.scienceguide.nl/2025/01/foru...

scienceguide.nl

"Forum voor Democratie strijdt tegen universiteiten en wetenschappelijk onderzoek” - ScienceGuide

Uit nieuw wetenschappelijk onderzoek van de Universiteit van Oslo blijkt dat Forum voor Democratie (FvD) systematisch probeert het vertrouwen in Nederlandse universiteiten en wetenschappelijk onderzoe...

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Sander W van der Laan @swvanderlaan.bsky.social · 08/01/2025

Also, we do not need money to apply a different approach to appreciating work. It's just an alternate approach to managing how we all work in #academia. It's about changing a culture. You don't need money for that.

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Sander W van der Laan @swvanderlaan.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

That said: they do have disease-causing effects and it is wise to try to minimize ingestion of #microplastics as much as possible. Read: where you can control it. For instance, drinking water from a metal bottle instead of a plastic one.

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Sander W van der Laan @swvanderlaan.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

Next they associated the presence of #microplastics with whether or not had a stroke or a heart attack or death from any cause. Perhaps that’s the origin of the confusion. Anyway, the facts remain: #microplastics are all around us and they get in our bodies.

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Sander W van der Laan @swvanderlaan.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

They found #microplastics in carotid plaques, *not* in the heart. These patients were operated (carotid endarterectomy) on the arteries (carotids) in the neck supplying blood to the brain which were partially blocked. The surgeons cleared this blockage, aka they took out the “plaque”.

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Sander W van der Laan @swvanderlaan.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

Both posts note that #microplastics are found in the plaques taken from the heart. That is not entirely the case.

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Sander W van der Laan @swvanderlaan.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

Nice nuanced explainers by @schwarzenegger.bsky.social 👉🏽https://arnoldspumpclub.com/blogs/newsletter/how-to-triple-your-fat-loss and and Michael Easter www.twopct.com/p/microplast...

twopct.com

Microplastics and Your Health

Six critical questions about microplastics: answered

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