'When it became final in April, I drank nothing but champagne for two days. Of course it is a real honour. In the field of technology MIT is the best there is, if they put you on such a list that truly means something. I have no idea who else is on the list, it was a secret until mid-September.'
Helene Andersson is in Twente for a few days to supervise PhD-students and conduct experiments. She has just come from a conference in Sankt Gallen, Switzerland and lives in her native country Sweden. Her professor Albert van den Bergh tried hard to get her to come to his group at MESA+ full time, but that was not what she wanted: 'I had worked in Canada and Switzerland for a few years, and now I wanted to stay in Stockholm, where I also have a job at Silex Microsystems. This combination of a commercial job and conducting research is ideal to me.'
And yet she did choose MESA+, for which she passed on an attractive offer from Harvard. 'You don't do that, say no to Harvard. And I must say they keep trying. But the technology at MESA+ is great, and you do not always have to be on site, we have regular long-distance meetings. I do come to Twente for a few days each month.'
On completion of her PhD-research the microsystems company asked her to set up a 'life sciences' department as a business manager. 'That was really a leap of faith. The company did not know what to expect, and neither did I. But everything went very fast, and by now sixty percent of revenue come from this branch, and the company has almost double the number of staff.'
Before, Silex had been specialised in microsystems for telecommunication: optical components. With essentially the same manufacturing technology the company now makes microchips for biomedical applications that are already finding their way to the clinic.
At MESA+ Helene leads a project in 'Cellomics'. 'Until now we are using these micro laboratories for analysing DNA and proteins: complete chains of molecules. Now we would like to extract information from a single living cell, with a chip. This can be used to develop new drugs, it has much in common with tissue engineering, and cell information is essential for building artificial organs.' Van den Berg's 'lab-on-a-chip group' sees the most growth in medical and environmental applications for the pocket-sized laboraries.
But to clear something up ... not yet thirty, a full time job at Silex Microsystems, a research position at MESA+, and a similar research position at the Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan, the technology institute of Sweden; how is this possible? 'I work hard. Yes, very hard. What works for me is to do a job you like so much that you do not feel it's work any more. On the other hand I do chuck it in occasionally and throw my stuff in the back of my car and drive to my holiday home in the north of Sweden. At the ocean there is space and quiet, there I can exercise and relax.'
Is it more common for women in Sweden to choose a technical discipline than it is in the Netherlands? 'No, actually I see comparable problems. I chose molecular biotechnology, a study set up especially to attract women. The UT does that with biomedical engineering? Very good: women usually aim for chemistry or biotech. I did do my PhD-research in microsystems, which gave me knowledge of both living cells and hard technology. True enough this is not very common.'
'The future? I don't think about that, although I am dreading my thirtieth birthday. No seriously, let's first go to the MIT, end of September, for this prize. I will see what chances pass by. But to be honest, it has to be really great, for me to give this up!'
Wiebe van der Veen transl. Dieneke van Aalst
Helene Andersson
