UvA/AMC Research Priority Areas

The University of Amsterdam has chosen to focus on the development of the areas of research in which the UvA is world leading. AMC leads these UvA Research Priority Areas.

  • Cardiovascular Diseases are the major health burden in a progressively obese and ageing population. Cardiovascular disease research in the AMC is organized in a tight cooperation between medical doctors, biomedical researchers, biochemists, biologists, bio-informaticians and genetics and imaging experts. Their input is crucial to integrate the available data and translate it to clinical knowledge and vice versa.
  • Infection and Immunity research in the AMC covers the full spectrum from fundamental to clinical research, with a strong emphasis on multidisciplinary approaches, translational research, as well as the translation of research findings into public health policy. AMC research on this theme focuses both on pathogens and on protective and harmful immune reactions. Moreover, a longstanding collaboration, research on human blood cells is being carried out with the Landsteiner Laboratory at Sanquin Research.
  • Metabolic Diseases can be roughly divided in those with a primary genetic basis and those that are mainly acquired such as diabetes mellitus and the metabolic syndrome, involving symptoms in many organ systems. Over the last decade, it has become clear that the brain plays an important role in coordinating and regulating metabolism in health and disease. Research in the AMC in this theme is multidisciplinary and translational and aimed at implementation of research findings into clinical use.

Furthermore AMC participates in the following Research Priority Areas:

  • Cognition is a broad area of study that encompasses observation, thought and action, as well as emotion, consciousness and movement. In short, all the mental faculties that allow humans to interact normally with their environment and learn how to improve themselves. The research priority area in Brain and Cognition studies the way in which our brain facilitates these skills and spans the entire spectrum from brain cell to social behavior. In this RPA the AMC, the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, the Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences and the Faculty of Science collaborate in the Spinoza Center for Neuroimaging, which is housed on the AMC campus.
  • Infectious diseases are no longer confined to specific regions, or even continents. With the expansion of international traffic and globalization, diseases have likewise become worldwide in scope. Globalization has also resulted in increased migration of medical staff and widespread distribution of medical technology. Paradoxically, this development has led to growing global inequality in the area of healthcare.
    How can we address these problems in an effective manner, and how can we set up adequate healthcare, particularly in places where this is proving next to impossible? These questions lead to the foundation of the University of Amsterdam's Amsterdam Institute for Global Health and Development (AIGHD), located on the AMC campus. AMC coordinates the collaboration in this RPA of AIGHD, the Economics and Business Faculty, the Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences, the PharmAccess Foundation and the Health Insurance Fund.
  • Biological systems are extremely complex. They are characterized by a massive interplay between large amounts of components over wide range of length scales of nanometers to kilometers and time scales of picoseconds to years. Until recently a systems biology approach was almost impossible because of this complexity. However, recent technological developments allow a paradigm shift from a reductionist approach focused on simplification towards an approach that allows us to investigate and ultimately understand the system as a whole. The key question in systems biology is how cells and organisms operate upon interaction with their external environment. Researchers of the AMC work together with colleagues from SILS and IBED, research institutes in the Faculty of Science.