About
Introduction
The aim of my research is to unravel the mechanisms of the origin and progression of prostate cancer, and identify new biomarkers and therapy leads for urological cancers. We focus on the role of extracellular vesicles, fusion genes, long noncoding RNAs, circRNAs, and the development of nanobodies against cancer.
Education and career
1983 - 1989: Agricultural University Wageningen, The Netherlands.
1990 - 1994: PhD degree: Department of Endocrinology & Reproduction, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
1994 - 1997: Post-doctoral Associate: Department of Cell Biology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, USA. Laboratory of Dr. Ming-Jer Tsai and Dr. Sophia Tsai under supervision of Dr. Bert W. O’Malley.
1997 - 1999: Assistant Geneticist and Assistant Professor of Urology Department of Urology and Department of Genetics, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, University of Texas, Urologic Oncology Research Laboratory, Houston, Texas, USA.
1999 - 2006: Assistant Professor of Urology, Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
2006 - 2012: Associate Professor of Urology, Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
2012 - current: Professor of Experimental Urological Oncology, Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
Publications
A complete overview of publications can be found here:
Teaching activities
Other positions
- 2006 - Secretary of the Foundation Scientific Research for Prostate Cancer (SWOP Research).
- 2017 - EAU Research Foundation Board member.
- 2017 - Associated Member of the European Society for Urological Research (ESUR).
- 2017 - 2019 Founding Member of the Netherlands Society for Extracellular Vesicles (NLSEV).
- 2019 - Scientific Advisory Board PRIME Accelerator Award consortium.
- 2019 - Member Scientific Board ANSER.
- 2020 - Member ISEV Urinary EV Clinical Translation Task Force.
Scholarships, grants, and awards
- IMMPROVE: KWF-Alpe d’HuZes: Innovative measurements and markers for prostate cancer diagnosis and prognosis using extracellular vesicles (2016- 2020).
- EffiBody: Eurostars: Development of a new platform technology for efficient, fast and cost-effective antibody generation (2016-2019).
- The Urinome Project: RNA and DNA sequencing of urine from men, women and children with various diseases of the urogenital tract (2016-2020).
- PROSCANEXO: TRANSCAN2: Exploitation of extracellular vesicles for precision diagnostics of prostate cancer (2018-2020).
- proEVLifeCycle: The life cycle of extracellular vesicles in cancer: from biogenesis and homing to functional relevance. Marie Curie Initial Training Network (2019-2023).
- BlCaNbs: Detecting and Destroying Urothelial Cell Carcinoma using cancer- specific nanobodies (2021-2024).
