Research Visit to the Erasmus MC in Rotterdam

In early 2026 I undertook a six-week research to the Erasmus MC in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

Introduction

I am a third-year PhD student in Medical Image Analysis on the Doctoral Training Programme in Precision Medicine at the University of Edinburgh. In my research, I am interested in automating ways to estimate the risk of future neurovascular disease from routinely acquired CT imaging. More specifically, I have developed machine learning models to quantify intracranial arterial calcification (IAC), an emerging marker of brain vasculature health. The driving vision for these automated quantification models is to stratify patients for risk of stroke and dementia at a large scale in research and clinical practice.

The main goal of the research exchange was to validate the models that I had developed during my PhD on an independent external dataset. For this purpose, I joined Dr Daniel Bos’ Vascular Imaging Group at the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam. Dr Bos is a leading expert in intracranial arteriosclerosis. During my research stay, I also collaborated closely with Dr Rick Bortsov, a postdoc in the Biomedical Imaging Group Rotterdam (BIGR) at Erasmus MC, who led a previous study on automated IAC segmentation approaches.

The Exchange

During the six weeks of the research exchange at the Erasmus MC, I was kindly integrated into both the Vascular Imaging Group and the BIGR community. I participated in regular research group meetings within the Vascular Imaging Group. I also had the opportunity to attend a doctoral defence from one of Dr Bos’ PhD students – I hadn’t expected them to be this traditionally formal in the Netherlands! I very much appreciate the experience as a contrast of academic traditions across countries. After having attended doctoral defences in my home country, Germany, and now one in the Netherlands, both of which are (at least mostly) public, I look forward to my own viva in the much more closed style of the UK.

I also engaged in BIGR seminars and informal group activities, including a pub quiz and a group lunch featuring discussions on ethical dilemmas in research practice from the Dilemma Game app. These events helped me to connect with researchers across different stages and disciplines and provided insight into the local research culture. It also provided opportunities for me to promote the SINAPSE ECR Exchange Fund to support visiting Scottish universities.

I successfully tested the models I developed during my PhD in Edinburgh on CT head scans from The Rotterdam Study and on trauma patients’ CT head scans from the Erasmus MC emergency department. I am especially grateful to Rick Bortsov for their technical insight and input, as well as to Daniel Bos for sharing his deep clinical insight into intracranial arterial calcifications and connecting me with his PhD students and follow-up collaboration opportunities. For example, I was able to contribute to another PhD student’s project investigating the spatial distribution of intracranial arterial calcifications using a method I had used to visualise disagreement between manual and automated segmentations.

In addition to the academic side of the exchange, I am also very grateful for the opportunity to explore Rotterdam, with its massive port, the incredible Blaak market hall, and the exciting modern architecture across the city. I was also able to visit Delft, with its porcelain museum, and Amsterdam, with a visit to the Van Gogh museum on the weekends.

Outcome

Now that I am back at the University of Edinburgh, I am starting the final year of my PhD. This year will involve writing up a publication based on the results of the research exchange, as well as a sustained collaboration with the researchers at Erasmus MC. While the external validation of the automated segmentation models is being finalised, we plan to test the clinical relevance of the automated segmentation by examining associations with clinical outcomes such as stroke and dementia in The Rotterdam Study, as well as by applying the automated models to real-world clinical settings. I look forward to presenting some of the results at the SINAPSE Annual Scientific Meeting 2026!

I would like to thank Dr Rick Bortsov and Dr Daniel Bos, as well as the wider Epidemiology and Radiology & Nuclear Medicine departments, for welcoming me to the Erasmus MC and for the personally and professionally enriching discussions. I want to sincerely thank my supervisors for their continued support and encouragement throughout this project and my entire PhD journey. Finally, I’d like to acknowledge the generous funding provided by the SINAPSE ECR Exchange Fund, without which the exchange would not have been possible. I am also very grateful for funding from my Doctoral Training Programme in Precision Medicine.