Experimental Translational Medicine

A Challenge-based Interdisciplinary Undergraduate Concept Fostering Translational Medicine

by Michael Y. Schakelaar, Sandra Crnko, Matthijs Monnikhof, Annemieke Maas, Marco van Brussel, Emma W. Pijnappel, Heggert Rebel, Jan Meeldijk, Toine ten Broeke, Annet van Royen-Kerkhof, Gönül Dilaver, Niels Bovenschen.

The Experimental Translational Medicine course is challenge-based and divided into two phases. Phase 1 takes up 100 hours in 5 weeks and is part-time (20 hours per week) in October and November. Phase 2 takes up 400 hours in 10 weeks and is full-time (40 hours per week) from April to June. Students can choose whether to do Phase 1 or Phase 2 only, or Phase 1 and Phase 2 in combination.

In the first phase, a cohort of ~500 students from the undergraduate programs biomedical sciences, medicine, pharmacy, humanities, biology, and chemistry can join an interdisciplinary think-tank. Here, students are presented with a (yearly changing) relevant health challenge and are asked to write an original, interdisciplinary, and feasible research proposal. In more detail, students are introduced to the health challenge in a plenary session with patients, medical doctors, researchers, and other (extra-academic) stakeholders. All involved parties present their points of view and describe their involvement in the translational medicine project, ultimately posing the challenge to students. This is the starting point for students to work in interdisciplinary teams on their own, unique, empiric research proposals aimed at better understanding of the disease and finding therapeutic interventions. All research proposals are subsequently ranked by all stakeholders. On the final day of the first phase, all students present their work via an oral or poster presentation, the best and most feasible study is selected and awarded funding for execution.

To facilitate the second (research) phase, a Student Research HUB Network has been established within and outside of Utrecht, the Netherlands. Research HUBs are physical innovation spaces within the very heart of university faculties that have short lines to local research, researchers, faculty, and other (extra-academic) stakeholders. These HUBs vary in expertise from wet (bio)medical laboratories to medical humanities, and from social sciences to artificial intelligence and health technology.

In the second phase of the course, a cohort of ~40 students from the same undergraduate programs as mentioned before utilize the Student Research HUB Network to perform the proposed authentic research. In detail, students form interdisciplinary groups and are encouraged to fine-tune proposed experiments, methodologies, and protocols. Next, students conduct research using a variety of disciplinary-specific techniques while being supervised by experienced researchers. During this hands-on practical part of the course, students report progress on their research project in lab journals and report preliminary results to supervising researchers, clinicians, and patients during weekly research meetings. In the last two weeks of the course, students conduct data analysis, report their work in the format of a scientific manuscript, and present their work via oral presentation in a symposium-like setting in the presence of all stakeholders.

Previous challenges: Unknown muscle disease (2019/2020), PLN cardiomyopathy (2020/2021), Cystic Fibrosis (2021/2022), Long-COVID (2022/2023)

Upcoming challenge: women’s heart SCAD (2023/2024).

See poster for a previous example in the context of PLN cardiomyopathy (academic year 2020/2021).

As a previous example in the context of one Student Research HUB: Drost RH, Dictus WJAG, Prakken BJ, Bovenschen N. How a four-year-old boy connects healthcare, biomedical research and undergraduate education. Nat Biotechnol. 2019 Sep;37(9):1092-1095. doi: 10.1038/s41587-019-0245-5. PMID: 31485047.

An example of the Student Research HUBs in European Alliance CHARM-EU: Schakelaar MY, Bassat Q, Comiskey CM, Felvinczi K, Haarhuis JCM, Bovenschen N. Linked research hubs train students to tackle societal challenges. Nature. 2022 Nov;611(7936):449. doi: 10.1038/d41586-022-03665-w. PMID: 36380041.