Job Verdonschot
Job Verdonschot, born in Maasbracht, finished his bachelor molecular life sciences in 2010 at Maastricht University. With the ambition to combine research and clinic in the future, he combined a research master Cardiovascular Biology and Medicine with a bachelor in medicine. For his senior internship he joined the clinical group of Prof. Dr. S. Heymans under daily supervision of Drs. Mark Hazebroek to focus on the viral, genetic and metabolic triggers on the development of dilated cardiomyopathy. This work led to a co-authorship in an article published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (Hazebroek et al. 2015, JACC). During his clinical internships he developed a strong interest in the field of cardiogenetics. After multiple internships at the department of clinical genetics at the Academic hospital of Maastricht, he was granted a Kootstra Talent Fellowship on a proposal focused on increasing the diagnostic yield of genetic diagnostics in patients with a dilated cardiomyopathy. This was a first step towards a PhD position at the research group of Prof. Dr. S. Heymans with strong collaboration of the clinical genetics department under supervision of Prof. Dr. H. Brunner. His main interest is in (clinical) cardiogenetics, the unraveling of new disease-causing genes and the determination of the pathogenicity of mutations in patients with dilated cardiomyopathy. A main goal will be the translation of research findings towards clinical diagnostic applications. He is enrolled in the European Homage clinical trial to investigate the role of spironolactone in preventing heart failure in at-risk patients.
In his spare time he likes sports, playing the bass guitar and playing challenging games.