Dr Hans Van Schie

Qualified: Utrecht University, the Netherlands (1972) as DVM. Institution/Practice: UTC Imaging BV. Raaphorstlaan 18B, BG Wesenaar, The Netherlands. Career: After another 6 years at the university, he founded the Raaphorst Equine Clinic, Wassenaar (the Netherlands), with a clear focus on equine orthopedics and veterinary management of the performance horse, and he specialised in diagnosis and treatment of injuries of tendons and ligaments. For many years he was the team-veterinarian of the Dutch equestrian team, until 2007. In 2001 full-time activities in the equine clinic were finished in order to devote more time to research. Research was done into the ultra-structure of elastic tendons and into the fundamentals of ultrasonographic tissue characterization (UTC), resulting in a PhD thesis"Ultrasonographic tissue characterization of equine superficial digital flexor tendons; Development and applications of computer-aided image analysis", awarded with the distinction cum laude (Utrecht University 2004). Since 2005, he is working at the Department of Orthopedics of Erasmus University Medical Center, Rotterdam (the Netherlands). He received an Erasmus Grant for Translational Research in order to implement UTC as a novel imaging modality into human orthopaedics, to investigate regenerative therapies for tendinopathy, and to monitor high-performance athletes during UTC-guided rehabilitation. Since 2007, he is Associate Professor for Comparative Research of Tendinopathy at the Department of Equine Sciences, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Utrecht University, investigating translational aspects of pathogenesis and novel approaches for regenerative medicine in human and equine tendon disorders. Both in the Netherlands and abroad (amongst others Australia, Germany), he supervises PhD students.

In 2009, he co-founded UTC Imaging, a company that is developing UTC for clinical use in orthopaedics and sports medicine and currently he is director of research.