Lisa Emmens defended her PhD thesis on novel insights in urinary and plasma biomarkers in heart failure with credit

On the 29th of September 2021, Lisa Emmens successfully defended her PhD thesis in the Academy Building of the University of Groningen. Seconded by her paranymphs Sebastiaan Dulfer and Stan Benjamens, she engaged in debate over her research with the opponents until the hora finita. Additionally to receiving her doctor’s degree, her defense was rewarded ‘with credit’ by the committee.

 

Supervisors: Prof. dr. Adriaan Voors, prof. dr. Rudolf de Boer, dr. Jozine ter Maaten.

Opponents: prof. dr. Jukema, prof. dr. Lam, prof. dr. Gansevoort, dr. Silljé, and dr. Westenbrink

 

Lisa is currently working as post-doc researcher under supervision of Adriaan Voors in the UMCG Groningen.

 

A short summary of the thesis:

Despite improvement in therapeutically options, prognosis for heart failure remains grim to this day. For heart failure with a preserved ejection fraction, therapeutical options remain limited. One of the reasons for this is that heart failure is caused by a complex interaction of genetic, hormonal and biochemical impairments. To find good therapies, scientists must try to improve the knowledge on these impairements. In this thesis, Emmens investigated several biomarkers to find out whether these could lead to new insights in these impairments.

Kidney function is important in patients with heart failure and Emmens found out that kidney injury molecule-1, one of the biomarkers she investigated, was not effective to provide clear insights in kidney function. The molecule proenkelfaline turned out to be a more effective biomarker. However, this molecule was not related to the development of heart failure.

Furthermore, Emmens evaluated whether impaired kidney function is associated with worse outcome in acute heart failure. She found out that this is not essentially the case, as long as the patient responds well to treatment. Lastly, she showed that the protein content and function of HDL, the good cholesterol, could be of importance in heart failure. With this research, Emmens hopes to contribute to the knowledge and potential new therapies for heart failure.

“I know of few remedies more powerful than a carefully chosen word” – Bernard Lown (proposition related to thesis)