prof. dr. E. (Eelko) Hak

Prof. hak is co-applicant and Working Package leader of the Interreg-NWE project PREAPHARM, Prevention of pollution of Water by Pharmaceuticals (2024-2028, 10M Euro)), see also website https://prewapharm.nweurope.eu/ . Professor Eelko Hak and Professor Patricia van den Bemt (UMCG) receive Interreg North-West Europe funding as partners in a large EU Consortium spanning seven countries in North-West Europe, investigating the prevention of medicine residues in water (PREWAPHARM).

These two founding members of the consortium will work together with TCNN and 30 partners, which includes Obseq, Zorgbelang Groningen and the RIVM from the Netherlands, on sustainable strategies and technological solutions to reduce environmental damage caused by the use of medicines. This project with a total budget of 10 million euros emphasizes the power of international cooperation between these international partners and the innovative water and health clusters in the Northern Netherlands.

The PREWAPHARM (Prevention of Water Pollution by Pharmaceuticals) project is an international collaboration aiming to reduce the environmental impact of pharmaceutical waste in the North-West Europe region. The project focuses on innovative strategies to prevent pharmaceuticals from entering water systems, particularly through improved collection, disposal, and treatment processes.

Objectives:
The project’s overarching goal is to reduce the presence of pharmaceuticals in water by:

• Creating a transnational strategy to serve as a policy framework and guidelines for local action plans, ensuring a supporting policy to reduce pharmaceuticals in water in the whole Northwest Europe region

• Strengthening governance and collaboration across borders and sectors to establish harmonized frameworks for pharmaceutical pollution prevention in healthcare and water management.
• Developing and piloting innovative upstream solutions to reduce pharmaceutical emissions at the source, including technical innovations in healthcare and water treatment systems.
• Creating scalable models and toolkits for other regions and EU member states, ensuring the replicability of successful approaches and technologies.
• Enhancing awareness and behavior change among healthcare professionals, pharmacists, patients and the general public through targeted communication and educational strategies.

These objectives align with the EU’s Zero Pollution Action Plan and the Water Framework Directive by focusing on source prevention, rather than solely relying on end-of-pipe solutions.

Prof. Hak is co-applicant and main contact from Groningen for the Erasmus+ Programme Erasmus Mundus Joint masters Project Master of Science in Sustainable Drug Discovery, in short S-DISCO (Main applicant prof Bart de Spiegeleer, University Gent, Belgium), 5.1M euro, expected start 2022/23 (72 months duration).   

Prof. Hak is co-applicant of the EU-FP7 project: Universal Influenza vaccines Secured (UNISEC 2013-2017, 6 M euro. He is Workpackage leader of WP6 Clinical trial program with universal influenza vaccines (about 2.000.000 euro, Dr. Marcy heng Liu, Ms. Eva van Doorn, Ms. Elske Bos).

Co-applicant EU-Marie Curie project Pronkjewail. In this 5 million euro project with 16 PhDs, prof Hak and prof Huckriede will coordinate the research into optimalization of effects of influenza vaccines (PhD research fellow Ms. Federica Sicca).  

Chinese CSC bursary project (Ms. Yuanyuan Wang): Novel methods to investigate the effectiveness of antibiotic therapy in COPD exacerbations with observational Big Data. 

ZONMW project audits on ritalin, anti-psychotic drugs and alfa-blockers (Mr. Jurjen van der Schans).

Various Indonesian LPDP scholarship projects (Mr Ivan Pradipta, Mrs Sofa Dewi Alfian, Ms. Sylvi Irawati, Ms. Doti Martono, Mr. Akbar Bahar).

ZONMW project Cost-effectiveness of pharmacogenetic screening in elderly patients with depression (600.000 euro, Ms. Lisette Berm).  

Research fellow grant for Mrs. Maryam Darvishian for PhD research on novel methods to study influenza vaccine effectiveness.

PhD scholarship obtained in competition within GRIP for Ms. Demy Idema on the development of data-mining techniques to detect novel indications and side effects of drugs using the IADB.nl.