Good start: Our ex-doctoral and post-doctoral researcher Dr.Anna Niehues has started her new post-doc position in Nijmegen, NL

This month, Anna started working at the Radboud University Medical Center (Radboudumc) in a collaboration between the Center for Molecular and Biomolecular Informatics, headed by Prof. Peter-Bram 't Hoen, and the Translational Metabolic Laboratory, lead by Prof. Alain van Gool. In her work as a data scientist within the Netherlands X-omics initiative, Anna is interested in the integration of multiple omics data sets to drive translation of big omics data into biological insight. During her time with us, she had been exceptionally successful in developing the bioinformatics tools for the evaluation of mass spectrometric data, and she used these to fine-tune the functional characterisation of chitosan modifying enzymes and the structural characterisation of chitosans. Building on the pioneering work of Dr. Stefan Cord-Landwehr and in close collaboration with Dr. Jasper Wattjes, she was co-responsible for setting up our enzymatic / mass spectrometric fingerprinting techniques which are currently revolutionising chitosan analysis. In her new position, Anna is now re-entering the world field of omics, on which she has worked during her Master's studies, and which we have only recently started to touch. Given her scientific excellence, her creativity and her persistence, we are sure she will also excel in this field which, though not new anymore, is still driving progress in life science research. The instruments and techniques for sequencing and mass spectrometric analysis are constantly being improved, and initiatives such as the one Anna joined in the Netherlands are making sure that the bioinformatics tools required to make sense of the ‘big data’ obtained keep up with this progress. Anna, we wish you as much success in Nijmegen as you had in Muenster, and please: Do keep in touch!