Integrative approaches to understanding and activating the gamma-glutamyl cycle in heart failure.
Same building — Academiegebouw, Broerstraat 5
Drinks and bites with the committee, family and friends, immediately following the defense in the Aula.
An informal evening to keep the conversation going. Come for one, stay for many — everyone welcome.
Heart failure remains one of the most challenging syndromes in contemporary cardiovascular medicine — population studies still report ~50% mortality at five years after diagnosis. Decades of antioxidant trials have largely failed, yet the underlying premise — that oxidative stress drives progression — keeps reasserting itself.
This thesis steps back from broad-spectrum antioxidants and into a single regulatory hub: the gamma-glutamyl cycle. Across six chapters it moves from systematic evidence and patient cohorts, through translational biomarkers, into novel nanoparticle-mediated delivery of an activator for 5-oxoprolinase — reframing a metabolic target as a tractable modulator for heart-failure therapy.
MD from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (2016); MSc in Nanotechnology & Regenerative Medicine from UCL (2017, distinction); PhD candidate at the UMCG Experimental Cardiology department since 2018, currently exploring 5-oxoprolinase as a therapeutic target for heart failure with preserved ejection fraction.
Open to conversations about heart-failure metabolism, translational nanomedicine, and AI-driven tools for biomedical research.