We are delighted to share that Yousif Dawood, MD and PhD-candidate in our team, has been awarded the De Snoo–van ‘t Hoogerhuijs Stichting Junior Award 2026, presented today in Utrecht.

Yousif received the award for his project VITA – Virtual Imaging and Tissue Analysis in Pregnancy Loss, a pilot study exploring new ways to uncover the causes of early pregnancy loss. Miscarriage affects roughly one in ten couples, yet in over 90% of cases no explanation is ever found. The project aims to substantially raise this diagnostic yield, and lays the foundation for a new miscarriage-specific biobank, complementary to the existing Dutch Fetal Biobank, focused specifically on tissue from pregnancy losses under 24 weeks.

This recognition builds on years of dedicated work: together with Dr. Bernadette de Bakker, Yousif co-founded the Dutch Fetal Biobank, now holding over 600 samples, and has been instrumental in developing the 3D Fetal Atlas and advancing imaging methods for studying human fetal development.

Yousif has been working toward this cause for years, among other things through his involvement with the Little Miracles Foundation, which raises awareness and funding for pregnancy loss research.

The awards were presented during the 2026 De Snoo Symposium, alongside a Senior Award for Dr. Melek Rousian (Erasmus MC) for her project on first-trimester detection of cardiac abnormalities, and a second Junior Award for MD-PhD Fieke Terstappen (UMC Utrecht) for her work on treating preeclampsia and fetal growth restriction. Melek is one of our collaborators, so this was in a sense a double win for our team. The symposium itself centered on the transformative potential of artificial intelligence in reproductive medicine, with talks spanning AI in prenatal decision-making, fetal monitoring, preeclampsia, genomics, and infertility care.

Congratulations, Yousif, Melek and Fieke!

A warm thank you to the jury and board of the De Snoo–van ‘t Hoogerhuijs Stichting for their continued support of research in this field.