(Bio)Medical Research Lab

This interdisciplinary lab course gives you a realistic insight into the life of a (bio)medical researcher. We provide advanced bachelor students (with backgrounds in medicine and/or life sciences) the opportunity to conduct authentic and real-world (bio)medical research in small interdisciplinary groups. This research is conducted in a well-equipped (wet) laboratory and focuses on urgent medical cases or ongoing translational medicine research problems. Each group will study the same hypothesis from different perspectives by applying different research methods. At the end of the course, you will write a research article and present the outcomes of your project.

This interdisciplinary lab course gives you a realistic insight into the life of a (bio)medical researcher. During this intensive 6 week course, we provide advanced bachelor students (with a background in medicine and/or life sciences) the opportunity to conduct authentic and real-world research in a well-equipped (wet) laboratory. This research topic will focus on an urgent medical need, e.g. on an actual patient case with an unknown medical problem or on an ongoing translational medicine research problem. All participants are divided into at least two groups that will all study the same problem from different perspectives by applying different research methods.

In the first week of this course, together with your peers, you will define a hypothesis through conducting a brief literature study, using (unpublished) research documents or a medical patient file. After this week, you will all test the same hypothesis in a bio-medical laboratory by using different approaches and research methods. You will be extensively supervised by experts in the field and qualified laboratory staff. You will have weekly work meetings with the supervisors and the other students, where the obtained data and plans are discussed.

At the end of the course, you will together write a concept research article. In addition, you will present the final outcomes of your project to your peers and the staff, just like professional researchers do at research conferences.

The interdisciplinary nature of this course will bridge the gap between biomedicine and (translational) medical research to further enhance ongoing and actual medical (research and patient) problems.