Peter Kapitein received his honorary doctorate

Friday October 19 the Dies Natalis of the VU University was celebrated. At this annual event Peter Kapitein, founding father of the Alpe D'HuZes foundation and Inspire2Live, and the personification of patient advocate for patient participation in research, treatment, care and policy regarding cancer prevention, treatment and rehabilitation, received an honorary doctorate.

before this event a symposium was held, organised by Peter Kapitein together with the VUmc Cancer Center Amsterdam (VUmc-CCA). At this symposium, in a full Amsterzaal -with over 200 attendees -, the director of VUmc-CCA and professor of Hematology Prof. Peter Huijgens first discussed issues, dilemma's and progress in cancer treatment and care with two patients. Thereafter, the tow endowed chairs of Alpe D'HuZes -Profs Irma Verdonck and Ellen Kampman presented and discussed their work in research on 'living with cancer'  and 'nutrition and cancer', and Prof Guus van Dongen presented the developments in and future promise of advanced imaging techniques in realizing a more personalized cancer treatment. After a short brake, Stephen Friend the President of Sage Bionetworks, and Prof. Hans Clevers, the president of the Netherlands Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences, provided presentations. Friend presented his views that understanding human biology requires a new community-based vision of open access innovation that respects and links all stakeholders -including patients, researchers, medical professional, policy makers, and industry- and supports a new culture of cooperative, data-intensive science. He pledged to take up this challenge and for this he has drafted the Sage Bionetworks Commons Principles to guide the development of an open source community where computational biologists can develop and test competing models built from common resources.
Prof. Clevers presented his work on the origins of colon cancer.
After the symposium the attendees rushed to the Dies Natalis event to witness the ceremony granting the honorary doctorate to Peter Kapitein.