Farewell to a luminary
Professor Ans van der Ploeg, MD, PhD, is retiring. As chair of the Center for Lysosomal and Metabolic Diseases at Erasmus MC University in Rotterdam, Netherlands, she is one of the leading figures in medical research who has worked tirelessly to develop a treatment for Pompe disease.
And that’s not all. With her empathy and skill, she has not only literally saved her patients’ lives, but also felt a deep human connection to many of them.
This was clearly evident when colleagues, companions, friends, and patients recently bid her farewell with standing ovations at a symposium in Rotterdam. “Dare to dream,” the motto of the day, summed up the spirit that drove Ans van der Ploeg.
We at the IPA are proud and grateful to have accompanied her on this journey as a patient organization. It is thanks to Ans van der Ploeg and the team at Erasmus University that Tiffany House and others were able to benefit from early clinical trials for the development of a therapy and were among the patients whose first ERT was still obtained from the milk of transgenic rabbits. Tiffany House wanted to honor this long journey together at the symposium, but her sudden and deeply mourned passing prevented this. So her sister, Andrea Faris, and our board member Wilma Treur took it upon themselves to recount the long journey shared by Ans and Tiffany and to provide insight into life as a patient with Pompe disease.
Around the symposium, the IPA had further opportunities for intensive exchange with doctors and scientists from Erasmus University on the status of the development of promising therapies.