Amsterdam UMC Imaging Center: the future of healthcare
22 May 2025
Image from Courtesy of Amsterdam UMC
UMC has partnered with leading institutions to remain at the forefront of healthcare innovation
Updated 13 September 2024 at 08:40
Formed through a 2018 merger, Amsterdam UMC is a leading institution that integrates advanced patient care, research, and education. Collaborating with the city’s top research institutes, it focuses on cancer, neurological, and cardiovascular diseases. The merger seeks to enhance patient care by consolidating specific groups at specialised locations, ensuring sustainable access to complex treatments.
Talent and tech in Amsterdam
In 2018 the VU University Medical Center and AMC merged to become Amsterdam UMC. Which is now s a leading medical centre that combines complex patient care, scientific research and education. Collaborating with Amsterdam’s wealth of research institutes, doctors at Amsterdam UMC have put their focus on cancer as well as to neurological and cardiovascular diseases.
We are getting into closer contact with the guys who are treating patients and together, in a multidisciplinary way, we’re defining what the best treatments for individual patients could be.
Professor Otto Hoekstra
Image from Ilse Paulussen
Joining forces for better patient care
The goal of the merger of the medical centres of the two Amsterdam universities is for Amsterdam UMC to reach an even higher quality of patient care. This will be achieved by clustering specific patient groups in one of the two locations, enabling sustainable access to complex patient care.
There are many knowledge institutes in Amsterdam, and the fact that Schiphol is nearby means that when we collaborate with international companies it is much more attractive for them to come and go within a single day
Professor Guus van Dongen
State-of-the-art Imaging Center
Part of Amsterdam UMC is the VU’s state-of-the-art Imaging Center, which brings together the existing infrastructure in one building. Recent developments in imaging technology are changing the way medical practitioners tackle disease, making it easier to find tumours and other diseases and track the high precision treatment of them. With MRI scanners that map the body and PET scanners that trace the effectiveness of drugs and hunt out illness, leading institutions are effectively able to peer inside us.
VUmc has one of the world’s most advanced labs for developing tracers – the contrasting agents that are injected into the body and attach themselves to diseased cells. It also has one of the few MRI PET scanners in the world. The cooperative approach of the Imaging Center includes partnerships with private enterprises.
