prof. dr. E.F.J. (Erik) de Vries

Erik de Vries graduated in chemistry at the University of Leiden, the Netherlands in 1991 and obtained his PhD in natural sciences at the same university in 1995. After a short project as a chemist at the pharmaceutical company Gist-Brocades in Delft, the Netherlands, he moved to the University Medical Center Groningen in 1996 to work as a radiochemist at the department of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, where he is still working. He was appointed as assistant professor at the University of Groningen, University Medical Center Groningen in 2008 and was promoted to associate professor in 2011. From 2015 to 2021, he was coordinator of the section Radiochemistry/Radiopharmacy, which is responsible for the development and production of a large assortment of PET and SPECT tracers for regular patient care, clinical trials and preclinical research. He implemented a new organizational structure within this section to stimulate collaboration, responsibility and personal leadership among the team members. In 2019, he was appointed as full professor in Translational molecular imaging, in particular PET.

 Erik de Vries is specialized in radiochemistry and translational molecular imaging, in particular in PET imaging of inflammatory processes and drug targets. His research involves the whole translational research pathway from tracer development and evaluation to validation of imaging applications in animal models and clinical studies. He was responsible for the implementation of several PET tracers, not only for preclinical and clinical research, but also for routine patient care within the UMCG. Within the department of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, he has initiated successful research lines on imaging of:

• Neuroinflammation and related processes in psychiatric and neurodegenerative diseases
• Immune cell infiltration in tumors, peripheral inflammation and infection
• Hormone receptors.

Since 2007, he is the chair of research of the department of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging. In addition, he is the primary contact person of the department for contract research with pharmaceutical industries and coordinator of project management office, which supports various academic and contract research projects. He is currently program coordinator of the Molecular Neuroscience and Ageing Research (MOLAR) program within the research institute BCN-BRAIN (‘Research Institute for Neurosciences and Healthy Ageing’). He was a member of the Task Group on “Inflammation and Infection Imaging” of the European Association of Nuclear Medicine (EANM) from 2007 to 2011. In this task group, he was involved in the development of guidelines for leukocyte labeling and white blood cell imaging. He co-edited 3 multi-author text books on the role of PET and SPECT imaging in psychiatry, neurology and neurobiological systems. The second editions of these books have been released in 2020. Between 2006 and 2013 he was member of the organizing committee of 6 international symposia. From 2007 to 2013, Erik de Vries was guest lecturer in molecular and diagnostic imaging at the University Sapienza in Rome, Italy. He was also awarded a grant as Special visiting Scientist at the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, for the period 2014-2016, with the aim to transfer knowledge between universities and to set up joint research projects on molecular imaging. In September 2014, he was appointed as “staff ambassador” for the University Medical Center Groningen with the task to facilitate the expansion of academic collaboration with two partner universities in Brazil: the University of Sao Paulo (USP) and Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS, Porto Alegre).