University of Groningen
Developmental and pathological roles of BMP/follistatin-like 1 in the lung
Tania, Navessa
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Publication date: 2017
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Tania, N. (2017). Developmental and pathological roles of BMP/follistatin-like 1 in the lung. University of Groningen.
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Acknowledgement
First of all, I would like to sincerely thank everyone who has made any contributions to the Fstl1 project and supported me through the process of starting up, during, and finishing this long unforgettable journey. These collective supports have made the completion of my thesis possible. As it is rather impossible to mention everyone individually, I apologize if I did not mention your name. For the following persons, I would like to specifically address my great appreciation.
Most of all I am fully indebted to my primary promotor, Reinoud Gosens, for your
constructive feedback on the study design, experimental planning, manuscripts and thesis finalization by giving me the necessary freedom to grow and develop scientifically and personally. You taught me by example on how to be a good future leader. Thank you for your continuous supports and advice throughout my PhD. I am glad and very grateful to work with you. Also, thank you for your quick response in finalizing the manuscripts and this thesis. Thank you so much, Reinoud!
I am grateful for the full support of my promotor Martina Schmidt in the last four years,
especially in pursuing pharmacological education in England. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to work on the Fstl1 project and for being very supportive in finalizing this thesis by providing me with feedback and suggestions.
I would also like to express my gratitude to my co-promoter in Florida, USA, Harm Maarsingh for the opportunity to work on the Fstl1 project. Thank you for your insightful advice in study design and thorough feedback in data analysis, data interpretation, and critically reviewing this thesis as well as abstracts and posters for conferences. Without your support, finalizing this thesis would not be feasible. I really appreciate your time and efforts to maintain good communication through Skype meetings in the past four years.
To the Fstl1 expert in the heart, Maurice van den Hoff, I am extremely grateful for your
guidance and suggestions throughout my project, especially in the study design and experimental plan of the Fstl1 knockout animal study. Thank you for your constructive feedback on the manuscripts and for giving me the opportunity to learn PCR data
analysis directly from the expert, the LinReg software developer, Jan Ruijter. I thank Jan
for the opportunity to participate in the intensive workshop on advanced real time PCR data analysis and for your guidance on selecting proper reference genes.
Besides my promotors, I would like to thank the assessment committee, Frank Kruyt,
Gert Folkerts, and Colin Bingle for critically reviewing and evaluating my thesis.
I wish to acknowledge the support provided by Wim Timens. I learned a lot from you
about ‘’reading’’ the human lung pathology and vessel structure. Thank you for your insightful input in study design, critical feedback on the manuscripts, and also kindly
providing COPD patient materials that were very valuable to my study. Andrew Halayko provided me with very valuable feedback on epithelial-mesenchymal
communication manuscript. Pieter Hiemstra, thank you for critically reading and
providing constructive feedback on the epithelial cell differentiation manuscript.
Thank you Luis Jesus Jimenez-Borreguero for your insightful knowledge on
cardiopulmonary physiological functions which was very valuable for the Fstl1 knockout manuscript. I am so grateful to have such experts to exchange ideas and discuss the data with.
Thank you Sophie Bos for traveling with me all the way to Amsterdam to isolate the
lungs of newborn mouse pups and generating human COPD lung slices, in addition to teaching me how to paraffin-embed and slice the lung tissue. I wish to thank
Marjan Luinge for your assistance in using the pressure cooker at the pathology lab.
Thank you Herman Meurs for your hospitality every time I joined your car to go to
conferences or a lab outing. You are extremely humble and your diverse interests beyond science are so inspiring. You even traveled around Indonesia more than I have done. I enjoyed talking to you about your experience in different parts of Indonesia and even successfully convinced me that Indonesia has a distinct smell. Thank you Amalia Dolga for several nice discussions we had about exciting experimental design and some great advice on future career development.
My gratitude also extends to Marc Sylva for sharing your extensive knowledge and
experience in studying Fstl1, Andrea Mattiotti for your support in managing the Fstl1 knockout breeding line and fruitful discussions on how to analyze and interpret the
data, to Stuti Prakash for collecting functional data in Madrid that are essential for
the publication and to Quinn Gunst for technical support in in situ hybridization
which were very valuable for the revision of the Fstl1 knockout manuscript. The annual Groningen-Amsterdam Fstl1 meeting would not be successful without all of your active participation and contributions. Thank you!
Many thanks to the master students who have been working with me on this
Fstl1 project. Ken Ho Hua, you impressed me with your final report and great
understanding on Fstl1 pathways in different systems, Jorinke Koops, thank you for
all your hard work in optimizing the immunostaining before you went New castle, Australia. You were a quick learner and able to be independent quite quickly. This was great when I could not be physically present for a couple of weeks as I had to
recover from surgery. Vanessa Niburg, thank you for your continuous enthusiasm and
your persistence in finishing the ELISA experiments. You were a very well organized
person and fun to be around. Furthermore, thank you to Frank Ensink, a humorous
and motivated student, for your hard work in running lots of western blots. I always appreciate your honesty and enjoy exchanging new ideas and creative experiments
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with you. Also, to the bachelor students Sefike Vardar, Rukiye Çiçek, Barzo Sulaiman,
Rosa Kortekaas, and Nuhoda Aldarij, thank you for all your hard work and dedication
to the project. I hope all of you had a great time and learn a lot during your internship. I would like to thank the following (ex)-colleagues for their kindly support, help, and for
all the fun we have had in the last four years. A special thanks to my roommate, Tim
Koopmans, Timmy, thank you for being around, and for being you. You saw me laugh
crazily or cry quietly. Thanks for all your support and being my ‘’living stress ball’’. I will
never forget when we had tapas with Pablo Munoz, encouraging me to keep going
while I was down. And of course to our many, many fun times throughout my PhD. Without you guys, I would not be writing this acknowledgment. Thanks a bunch! I wish both of you good luck with your career and I look forward to reading your publications
in Science, Cell or Nature! Haoxiao Zuo, I secretly wished you would not need to go
to Germany every now and then, just stay in our office in Groningen to add more
woman power ;) Thanks to you and Bing Han for cooking local Chinese food every now
and then, which really reminds me of my grandparents’ cooking. Also thanks Bing for
helping me translate a Chinese abstract about Fstl1. I thank John-Poul Ng-Blichfeldt
for the inspiring discussions about epithelial differentiation. If only you came back to Groningen earlier, I would probably have more time to do some follow-up experiments.
Pavan Prabhala, thank you for many fun times, which included walking around Groningen
to catch Pokémon. We caught more than 50 Pokémon in a day! Thanks to Anita Spanjer
and Loes Kistemaker for teaching me how to isolate primary human epithelial cells as
well as perform ALI cultures, and to Eline van Dijk, thanks for sharing primary human
fibroblasts. Although it was rather short, I had shared several nice memories with
Mariska van den Berg, Inge Krabbendam and Xin Hui Wu, especially during intensive
preparation for Herman’s farewell party where the three of you practiced your music talents in my office. Thank you for all the sweet moments we shared and I wish all of
you to enjoy and get the most out of your PhD experience. I thank Annet Zuidhof for
the technical assistance in showing me how to do immunohistochemistry for the first
time. Thanks Carolina Elzinga for empowering discussions that had given me a new
perspective. Without it, I would not be able to finish my thesis. Thanks Sepp Jansen
for inspiring advice on writing and finishing a thesis abroad, which I kept in mind while writing this thesis in Seattle.
Thank you Janneke Fekkes-Koolman, for your kindly help in sending the hard copy of
my thesis to the reading committee member in England, in extending my RuG email that enables me to submit my thesis, and in arranging the reimbursement of travel expenses for the conferences and courses in the past four years. I would like to also thank you in advance for being very helpful in supporting my paranymphs to distribute
the thesis. I would be lost without your help. Jacques Hille, you were always caring
about my wellbeing and progress in my thesis writing. I have greatly appreciated this, thank you so much for your concerns.
to get taste of Indonesian cultures by coming to watch my stage performance at
the Indonesian day! And together with David Wright, we explored the Dutch island,
cycling around Terschelling during the very rare Dutch summer. That was my first
time swimming with jellyfish in Dutch water! Thank you Mark Menzen for all the fun
you brought every day, making lab life less serious. Since you left, the lab was never the same.
Thanks to my friends for making my life worth living, more colorful, and never letting
me give up. Christel Seegers and Thea van den Bosch, I am glad to have you as
my friends and so grateful to have you as my paranymphs. Thank you for helping
me with the Dutch summary for this thesis. Together with Maureen Xu, we always
made time for girls night out, thank you for all the fun times we shared, for coming to my house often and willing to try my experimental cooking without any doubt. Maybe because I did not tell you they were experimental dishes ;) I could not expect to have better friends than you all. It was so difficult to say good-bye when I moved to Seattle but who knows, I might come back to the Netherlands one day. In the meantime, we will stay in touch.
Thank you to my topmaster fellows, Vijay Anand and Neeraj Kumar for our many
great times together. We have known each other for as long as I moved to Groningen and we have been through many ups and downs, as foreigners in Groningen,
experiencing all the new stuff for the first time. Tomas Kloosterman, you are very
talented not only in science but also in music. Thank you for inviting me to your piano concerts, sharing your creative homemade salad recipes, and not to mention for fixing my bike. I am so glad that you found the love of your life, Angelique Kloosterman that also shares the same interest in science and music. Thanks Johana Isaza Correa for visiting me in Groningen, I hope everything goes well with your PhD
as well as personal life in Ireland. I missed our great time together with Karolina
Szczrba during summer in Groningen. I hope we can meet again one day either in
Europe or in the US. Sunil Lee and Smitha Chandran, thank you for your hospitality
and introducing me to authentic Indian foods. I would never forget the day that you
had to fly to India in the early morning, when Katarzyna Butler and I had to catch
the train carrying all your big suitcases at the very last minute. It was crazy but fun!
Thank you Valentine Kheng for making the world seems so small by keeping in touch
no matter where we are by visiting each other in different parts of the world. Thank you for visiting me in the Netherlands and I was so glad to visit you in New York. I
am so grateful to have such amazing friends like you and Rama “Radut” Dhenni!
Thanks for your continuous support. Dut, I really appreciate your time and effort for critically reading and reviewing my Indonesian summary for this thesis.
Robert Woudstra, thank you for kidnapping Wilfred for diving weekends, allowing
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to be present at our wedding in Indonesia and to be the first person to visit us in Seattle! I hope you had great time in the US!
To the (former) members of Indonesian student association in Groningen (PPI Groningen), thank you for organizing many events where I could speak Indonesian and contribute to promote Indonesian cultures. Through this organization also I met many PhD fellows from diverse backgrounds. I apologize I could not mention everyone but I would like to thank all for all your support during my stay in Groningen. A special
thanks to Awalia Febriana and Astri Ferdiana, for being such inspiring role models, to
Surahyo Sumarsono for reviewing and providing feedback for the Indonesian summary
of this thesis. Thanks a bunch Daniel, words fall too short to describe my gratitude
for your kindly help and support in my first two years in Groningen. Glad to hear that you also finishing your PhD. I am convinced that you will get a postdoctoral position
soon. Rieza Aprianto, we have known each other since we were at ITB, you probably
know me as ‘’mahasiswa nyasar’’ as I was the only person from Microbiology that took Pharmacy courses. And later, to our surprise, we ended up together again in Groningen. I wish you success to finalize your thesis and good luck for your future career in the
Netherlands! MacKenzie Hadi, ‘who does not know Kenzi’, that was the first comment
I heard from others before I met you. After I met you, I know why. Thank you for being very entertaining. Groningen has never been the same since you moved to Leiden.
Amirah A. Alkaff, Putri D. Utari, and Doti Parameswari, thank you for all the fun we
shared together during the preparation of the Indonesian day every year as well as for your kindly support in the past four years.
Thank you the Marmalade gang, for all your mental support throughout my PhD and being my friends in the last 13 years, no matter where you are in the world. Thank you Mega Arfindari, Amalia Muntiyara, and Dessy Dwiyanti for always making time to
meet up every time I visit Indonesia. To Ikha Mansoora and Maya Fitriyanti, we finally
live in the same country again. We definitely will catch up more often. I hope to visit you
in South Korea soon, Anggita Karleshya.
I would like to thank my cousin, Joe Wimpi Manikam, who helped me out since my
final bachelor project at the Pharmaceutical Biotechnology laboratory at ITB. Without your help as a medical doctor, I would not be able to perform the functional assay to test the enzyme activity I worked on in 2008. For my PhD, you were again very helpful for inspiring discussions on the plausible cause of death of the Fstl1 knockout mice. You are very talented and knowledgeable and I know I can always come to you when I need clinical advice and medical doctor support.
A special thanks to Putri A. Wulandari, there are not enough words to thank you
enough. We have known each other for 18 years, you are like a sister to me. You have been my living witness of my long journey in pursuing my ambition. Thank you for visiting me when I just moved to Groningen and again when I was finishing up my PhD and about to move to Seattle. I am glad that you will come to my defense. Thank you
for countless empowering discussions we had and for designing my beautiful artsy cover that turned out to be better than my imagination! My parents, mama and papa, thank you for raising me and providing me with loving and caring environment, which allowed me to take a risky and difficult path that no one in our family had yet pursued, from a bachelor in science to a master study abroad, until my PhD. You never doubted my choices, instead encouraging me to keep going, which eventually resulted in this thesis. Time difference and distance have never been a problem to maintain our good communication, thank you for your continuous support! Your support has helped me to persevere and go through
many difficult circumstances. Thanks my brother, Herren Calida for visiting me in
Groningen, soon you will graduate and apply your business skills in to practice. Best
of luck! Thanks to my brother, Hanel Topada and his lovely wife, my sister-in-law
Sylvia T. Gunawan for taking good care of our parents while I am so far, far away.
Thanks Nel for introducing me to the world of investment and for being my personal financial advisor.
My parents-in-law, my mem, Janke Huitema, thank you for teaching me how to be
creative in sewing and knitting. I am so grateful to have you because I know I can always be myself and come to you for support in the Netherlands. Thank you my
heit, Marten Poppinga for accompanying me to get my surgery in Assen as well as
for helping me moving in and out of 3 different houses, until we finally moved to Seattle. With heit and mem, I had lots of memorable time in Germany, Belgium and
all around the Netherlands. I would also like to extend a thank you to Alexander
and Anje Poppinga for your hospitality and giving me my first adorable nephews in
the Netherlands, Jurryt and Thymen. Thank you Avelien Huitema, for visiting me
in Groningen multiple times. Congratulations on finishing your studies and taking
a bold move to look for your dream job! Marijke Huitema and Nicola Williams, it
felt like yesterday that I came to your wedding in Belgium, instead it has been four years. Time goes so fast! Thank you for visiting me whenever you came back to the Netherlands. I am so glad to hear that both of you have settled down now in Ghent.
Last but not least, thanks to Wilfred J. Poppinga for being such a sweet and loving
husband, for your non-stop support and faith in me. Thank you for always taking good care of me, being an antidote of my stress, giving me all the freedom I wish for, and much more. No wonder I married you 3 times! We have been through many challenges together in the past 5 years, including living on different continents twice. I hope we will never do it again. I am very happy to share my life with you. Words could never be enough to express my gratitude to have you as my life partner. Navessa P. Tania Seattle, WA June 2017
