Dr. Hermien Kan

• Role: Associate Professor, Radiology

After completing my studies in Movement Sciences at the VU in Amsterdam, I began a PhD research project in 2012 at Radboud UMC in Nijmegen. During my PhD, I used MRI and MR spectroscopy to study metabolism in muscles. Following this, I continued using these same techniques in Nijmegen to investigate the muscles of patients with facioscapulohumeral dystrophy (FSHD). In this research, we developed a new method to measure muscle fat infiltration and discovered that muscle metabolism only differs when fat infiltration is already visible in the muscles.

In 2008, I joined LUMC, where I was able to establish my own research line focused on MRI of muscles. In close collaboration with the Neurology department, we initiated natural history studies in Duchenne and Becker muscular dystrophy, aiming both to describe the disease process and to investigate its pathophysiology. My research is funded through grants from the Duchenne Parent Project, the European Union, and the Association Française de Myologie. In 2015, I received a Vidi grant from the Dutch Research Council (NWO) to investigate why certain muscles remain spared for a long time in muscular dystrophies. A new research line in my group focuses on imaging the eye muscles in Myasthenia Gravis.