Dr. Pieter van der Zaag

Dr. Pieter Jan van der Zaag is a physicist. In 2021, he joined the University of Groningen to work on physics-related topics relevant to healthcare in a joint appointment between the Zernike Institute (Faculty of Science and Engineering, FSE) and the UMCG. He obtained his doctorate from the University of Leiden on high-resolution laser spectroscopy and joined Philips Research (“Nat. Lab.”) in 1990. After stints in the UK and South-Korea, he has worked at Philips Research since 2004 on topics related to healthcare, in connection to novel cancer diagnostics, such a next-generation sequencing, liquid biopsies, 3D optical biopsy analysis, and optical contrast agents. During his time at Philips, he has been the inventor on 70 patents (applications).

Since clinical translation and implementation of technology require a strong cross-disciplinary team of physicians, chemists, pharmacists, biologists, physicists, and engineers, he joined the Optical Molecular Imaging Groningen (OMIG) and is principal investigator within the group.  His focus is on developing new optical technology for intra-operative pathology assisted surgery (IPAS) to improve resection margin assessment, as well as on determining local drug distributions.