- The University
- 19/03/2019
The legacy has been placed in the Leerzem Family Fund and will be used to stimulate promising young scientists who conduct clinical research in the field of internal medicine. “In addition to existing sources of financing, this offers them extra support,” says professor of internal medicine at University Medical Center Utrecht Carlo Gaillard. He says the fact that the money was donated by a former UU student makes it all the more special.
Annie van Leerzem (1933) grew up as an only child in Rotterdam and graduated from what was then the Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht in 1959. She was registered as a general practitioner her whole life but never practiced medicine because she took care of her parents. When they died in the late 1990s, Van Leerzem was in her sixties.
She lived by herself until her death and led a “sober and relatively solitary” existence. “With this bequest,” Utrecht University writes, “she has made a contribution to medical science, for which she had such a passion.”
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