Rick Waasdorp has been awarded a ZonMw IMDI Talentprijs for his MSc thesis work on ultrasound imaging of muscle contraction

The IMDI ​​Talent Prize is an annual prize to be awarded for the best graduation research on a new medical device and / or an associated e-health application. The IMDI ​​Talent Fund awards a prize of € 1500 for this.

Winner committed to disease: Duchenne or Becker muscular dystrophy
During his graduation project, Rick Waasdorp combined two different techniques to visualize muscle contractions on a very fast time scale. These diseases lack the protein dystrophin, which means that forces within a muscle may be less efficiently transferred. This technique shows exactly which part of a muscle is activated, and how this regional activation manifests itself in muscle movement. Muscle tests in Duchenne patients show additional damage to the muscle. Rick’s method could lead to a new diagnostic technique that can determine, without causing damage to the muscle, whether the muscle contraction becomes more efficient with new treatment options.

More information can be found on the website of ZonMw (Dutch only).