Gyneacopathology

The gynaecologic pathology research group of the department of Pathology is embedded in the Cancer theme at the LUMC. The overarching aim of his research team is to improve the quality of life and clinical outcomes for patients with gynaecologic malignancies, by reducing over- and undertreatment and by introducing targeted treatment options. This group has had a leading role in the development of the molecular classification of endometrial carcinomas. The scientific work of this group however covers all malignancies from the gynaecologic tract. To achieve the group’s goals studies are targeted at prognostic tumour markers with a focus on molecular tumour genetic alterations and micro-environmental factors such as the composition of the immune-infiltrate. In additional studies are being conducted focusing on markers that may predict response to anti-cancer treatments. For this aim it is imperative to collect tissue/biobanks from clinical (randomized) trials, including trials that use specific targeted treatments. Therefore the fundament for the translational studies of the research group lies in the acquisition of largest collections well annotated cohorts with robust and long-term outcome data (eg PORTEC and RAINBO studies). Finally, the research group has recently developed a novel angle to achieve the above described goals, which is centred around artificial intelligence (AI) applications on the acquired digital images of the tumour collection.

• Tjalling Bosse, PI
• Vincent Smit, pathologist and co-PI
• Nanda Horeweg, senior researcher and co-PI
• Maaike Vreeswijk, molecular biologist/collaborator
• Cor de Kroon, gynecologist/collaborator
• Natalja ter Haar, technician
• Tessa Rutten, technician
• Past and present PhD students: Ellen Stelloo, Inge van Gool, Linda Nooij, Kim Kortekaas, Alicia Leon, Cathalijne Post, Marthe de Jonge, Elke Peters, Lisa Vermij, Claire Kramer, Sarah Fremond, Anne-Sophie vd Heerik, Nikki vd Berg