Microfluidic Technology in Vascular Research: The endothelial response to shear stress

This thesis is the result of a bit more than four years of work, which I performed as a PhD-student in the group of Polymer Chemistry and Biomaterials of the University of Twente in Enschede, The Netherlands. When I decided to accept this position on a late summer's day in 2005, I knew it was a bit of a gamble. I was unfamiliar with the city, the university, and the group with its focus on materials science. Still, it felt right to take this leap into the unknown. Up until that moment, I had never strayed too far from the comfortable security of my childhood friends and family in the vicinity of Groningen, in the north of the Netherlands. The time was ripe for a new challenge. So, after some of prof. István Vermes' typical one-line, staccato-style e-mails and a one-hour talk with my supervisors-to-be, prof. Jan Fei-jen, dr. André Poot and prof. István Vermes, in an office filled with cigar smoke, the deal was settled. A few weeks later, I moved to Enschede. The following four years would turn out to be a most stimulating experience – both academically and personally. My project was part of a brand new, in-house, multidisciplinary research orientation that focused on the effect of mechanical stress on living cells. The advantage of a new project is that it allows one to be very actively involved in determining the scope of research. Distilling my own specific research questions from a complex mix of scientific literature, available equipment, in-house expertise, and existing or potential collaborations was a most exciting and educational experience. I have many people to thank for giving me constant feedback during this process: not only my aforementioned trinity of direct supervisors, but also the people that attended the periodical project meetings, like the project leader, Michèl Duits, the external advisor from the hospital, Louis van der Maas, the post-docs (now both assistant professors), Séverine le Gac and Siva Vanapalli and my fellow PhD-student in the project, Jane Li. During the early years of my project, I travelled a lot from the university campus to the city hospital to perform my experiments. Later on, the group moved to a new building on campus in which all the facilities I needed were clustered. Still, no matter where I worked, I was never without help. Karin Hendriks and Zlata Rekenji were always available when I needed …