After qualifying as a Veterinary Surgeon in 1994, Hadewych Van Hauwermeiren worked as Clinician and Surgeon in an equine referral hospital. In 2001, she became responsible for the preclinical work of large test models for a cell therapy company. Soon after, she joined the cardiovascular research lab of Prof. Flameng, who trained her in preclinical cardiovascular surgery. In 2003, Hadewych started Medanex BV, a consultancy company supporting private and academic research groups in all aspects of preclinical in vivo research. This led to the foundation of Medanex Clinic in 2010, a highly specialized preclinical testing laboratory for cardiovascular medical devices which was acquired by NAMSA in 2022.

Hadewych received her Master Degree in laboratory animal science in 2003.

CORE COMPETENCIES

• Preclinical interventional and surgical research
• Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) studies
• Translational research
• Thorough knowledge of large preclinical test models for safety and functional evaluation of new medical devices, especially cardiovascular, bone & joint cell therapy and organ transplantation models
• Scientific leadership
• Entrepreneurship and pragmatic problem solving

RECENT PROJECTS

• Set-up of a high intensive-care chronic total artificial heart (TAH) model
• Set-up of a high intensive-care chronic extra-corporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) model
• Received a 768 K € grant from the Flemish government for the development of diseased heart valve models