Dear family, friends and colleagues,

It is with overwhelming sadness that I’m informing you that yesterday my beloved Anniek passed away. She was my best friend and my spouse. She passed away peacefully, without pain and at home while being on hospice care and being taken care of by me, Henk, just as she always wished. It is just very sad that it is at such a young age of 45 years.

She does have a nice standing list of accomplishments and at least that is something that provided some solace to her: working on the human genome project at Stanford that sequenced the first human genome, working on pharmaceuticals at Roche Palo Alto to help cure people, and ultimately working at Agilent Santa Clara on DNA/RNA microarrays and next gen sequencing. All to the benefit of society and people’s well being. Several of these contributions help with cancer research and cures, but alas for Anniek, tumor science has not advanced far enough yet.

Her desire is to be cremated. For her family and friends in Belgium there will be a memorial service in Belgium. For her friends and colleagues in the USA, we’ll have a gathering in the Bay Area to celebrate and remember her life.

Please do not overwhelm us with flowers. If you do want to express your appreciation for Anniek in any way, then share your most beautiful moments you had with her or fun tidbits or why you really appreciated her.

Sincerely,

Henk Neefs, her husband

 

May God’s light shine upon Anniek and may God show her peace and rest in eternity.

Connie