Annette van der Helm-van Mil is professor of rheumatology, in particular early arthritis, and works as an internist and rheumatologist at the rheumatology department of the Leiden University Medical Center. She is also a professor at the rheumatology department of the Erasmus Medical Center and has been appointed as Medical Delta professor. She has received several prizes and personal grants at national (including NWO Vidi and Clinical Fellow grant) and international level (ERC Starting Grant). Her research into the earliest phases of RA in the LUMC and EMC has been rewarded as Research Center of Excellence.

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Annette van der Helm-van Mil is professor of rheumatology, in particular early arthritis, and works as an internist and rheumatologist at the rheumatology department of the Leiden University Medical Center. She is also a professor at the rheumatology department of the Erasmus Medical Center and has been appointed as Medical Delta professor. She has received several prizes and personal grants at national (including NWO Vidi and Clinical Fellow grant) and international level (ERC Starting Grant). Her research into the earliest phases of RA in the LUMC and EMC has been rewarded as Research Center of Excellence.

Research

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a common and chronic inflammatory disease that causes joint pain and limitations in daily functioning and work. Currently, joint damage can be prevented with timely treatment. Nevertheless, RA remains a disease that affects people for life. The aim is to reduce the chronic disease burden of people with RA and ideally prevent the chronic disease RA.

Currently, a diagnosis of RA can be made if joint swelling (arthritis, joint inflammation) can be recognized by physical examination. At this time of diagnosis, the disease has already become chronic and requires lifelong treatment. The disease phases that precede the diagnosis therefore form the starting point to prevent chronicity. Van der Helm wants to investigate the phases preceding arthritis/RA to find crucial mechanisms underlying chronicity, which can then be suitable for developing targeted (preventive) treatment. She also wants to recognize patients earlier. She supervises the Leiden Early Arthritis cohort, the multicenter Clinically Suspect Arthralgia cohort running in Leiden and the Rotterdam region, and the TREAT EARLIER trial. The first results of this study showed that very early treatment with methotrexate does not prevent the development of RA, but it does permanently reduce the disease burden and severity of the inflammation. In order to implement early recognition optimally in clinical practice, research is being conducted into patient-friendly and cost-effective MRI techniques and deep learning as a tool to assess MRI scans (together with LUMC, EMC and TU Delft). 

Academic career

Van der Helm started studying biomedical sciences in 1992 and medicine in 1993 at Leiden University. She passed her medical exam Cum Laude in 1998, she was registered as an internist in 2005 and as a rheumatologist in 2006. In 2006, she obtained her PhD Cum Laude for the thesis "Genetics, Autoantibodies and Clinical Features in Understanding and Predicting Rheumatoid Arthritis" at Leiden University. Since 2006, she has been a rheumatologist at the rheumatology department of the LUMC. She was head of the outpatient clinic of late 2006 to 2015.

In November 2015 she became a senior professor at the LUMC and EMC. On October 14, 2016, she delivered her inaugural lecture on “The Changing Face of Rheumatoid Arthritis”.

Van der Helm supervises the Leiden Early Arthritis Cohort, the Clinically Suspect Arthralgia cohort and the TREAT EARLIER trial. The latter two projects are being rolled out in the Medical Delta region. Her early arthritis research line, which subsequently took place at the LUMC and EMC, has been recognized twice by ReumaNederland as a Research Center of Excellence (2018-2023 & 2023-2028). In 2023, van der Helm was appointed as Medical Delta professor.

She is associate editor of RMD Open, has >370 peer-reviewed scientific publications to her name (including >180 last authorships) and wrote >11 chapters in textbooks. She is actively involved in various European consortia  and EULAR (European League against Rheumatism) taskforces. She supervised. the development of the EULAR definition of 'arthralgia suspected of progression to RA' and is currently supervising an international EULAR/ACR taskforce developing risk stratification criteria for CSA. She was the primary supervisor of >20 PhD students.

Prizes and honourable appointments

Van der Helm receives the EULAR Young Investigator award, the Prof. Dr Goslings Prize (biennial prize from the NVR for the best research) and the Marie-Paris prijs (research prize from Leiden University). They received various scholarships. In addition to various project grants from NWO and ReumaNederland, they receive several personal grants such as an ERC Starting Grant (2016), Vidi (2012) and Clinical Fellow Grant (2007).

Publications