Anke-Hilse is a real female innovator in the health care field. As a full professor she is enthusiastically leading a team of more than 40 researchers (Assistant Professor, post-docs, MDs, PhD students and junior researchers) at the Department of Respiratory Disease in the Amsterdam UMC, location AMC. Her current research focuses on precision medicine in Respiratory disease. She is a pharmacist by training and excels in bringing people from different disciplines together in order to improve treatment for the individual respiratory patient. She successfully builds bridges across disciplines. She has a very impressive academic track record: she has currently published > 290 articles in peer reviewed journals. She has received a VENI grant in 2006. 

She was the Coordinator of the FP7 Health Collaborative project EU-PACT, conducting a clinical trial in 7 countries to determine the efficacy of genotyping before start with coumarin therapy. And she was a prinicipal investigator in the FP7 Collaborative project PREDICTION-ADR, conducting a multi-country pharmacogenomics study of adverse drug reactions to cardiovascular drugs. She is the coordinator of the ERANET project SysPharmPedia that conducts a Systems Pharmacology approach to pediatric asthma. She acquired funding from the Dutch Lung Fund to conduct a pharmacogenetic clinical trial (PUFFIN) in children with uncontrolled asthma. She is the PI of the large public private partnership P4O2 (Precision Medicine for more Oxygen) sponsored by Health Holland (www.p4o2.org). 

Furthermore, she has spend a lot of time for scientific boards and bringing the scientific community together. She was the chair of the European Research Network of Pharmacogenetics from the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Sciences (EUFEPS) for almost 10 years, and is now still member of the steering committee. She was the secretary/treasurer of the board of the Netherlands Society of Clinical Pharmacology and Biopharmacy (NVKF&B) and she was the chair of the Netherlands Respiratory Society (NRS). 

She is the president of the Federation of Innovative Medicine Research in the Netherlands (FIGON). She is also the president of the European Association of Systems Medicine (EASYM). 

Last, but not least, she leads her group with passion and eye for the individual member. She feels responsible for her team, stimulates collaboration and learning from each other, and tries to let everyone bloom!

On behalf of the public-private partnership P4O2, I would like to nominate Prof. Anke-Hilse Maitland-van der Zee, the PI of our consortium. She is Prof. of Precision Medicine in Respiratory Disease in the Amsterdam UMC, location AMC. Over the last 5 years, she spent a lot of effort in putting together our very multidisciplinary consortium with 8 Dutch universities and 21 small and large companies and patient organizations. The 14.5 million euro project aims for early detection of lung disease, which we will do by combining basic science, -omics measurements, imaging, exposome measurements and more. Besides managing to secure the funding and getting the original plans going, which was very challenging from time to time, she is always looking for new connections and plans for P4O2. This led to the addition of a COVID-19 cohort and a COPD cohort to the healthy persons cohort that we originally planned. In the near future it is expected that an ILD and a puberty cohort will be added. Next to P4O2, she has many other projects running, and she is frequently asked to lead other consortia. She currently guides 9 Postdocs and 25 PhD students. 

Apart from being so eager, successful and involved, she is also very pleasant to work with. She always considers the interest of our partners and keeps an eye on her people. Also, she is not afraid to have more difficult conversations, which always seem to be a bit lighter when she takes the lead. She is a great inspiration to the younger scientists in our consortium. She set up a young-researchers community in P4O2 and even arranges a monthly meeting with her own Postdocs to guide us on how to deal with all non-scientific issues you face as a researcher. She takes us to formal discussions with influential figures, so we learn how these conversations go. According to us, Anke-Hilse is the person you are looking for and it would be great to put her in the spotlight!!