Veni Grant for Lucia Bossoni
Postdoc Lucia Bossoni has received an NWO Veni grant to research brain diseases for the next three years. She will work in labs at both the LUMC and the Leiden physics institute.
Bossoni will study the cause of neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. ‘We know that people’s brains contain iron,’ she says. ‘The amount increases as you grow older. In patients with brain diseases, there is an abnormal iron distribution.’ However, as she emphasizes, it is unknown whether iron is the cause or a consequence of the illness. With her research, Bossoni hopes to find out more about the properties of the iron in patients’ brains. Is it for example oxidized? And what are the magnetic properties? In addition to fundamental knowledge, the study also opens possibilities to better visualize iron during diagnosis.