Prof. Dr. J.C.H. (James) Hardwick

I am professor of Gastroenterology and in particular the early detection and treatment of colorectal tumours. I received my initial training in gastroenterology and general internal medicine in the UK at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge University and at St Thomas’s Hospital in London. In 1999 I moved to Amsterdam where I was awarded a PhD with the thesis entitled “Molecular Mechanisms in Colon Cancer” on 25 September 2002. My research interests include the molecular biology of colorectal cancer initiation and progression and new endoscopic techniques for the detection and removal of (pre)cancerous lesions in the colon. My clinical interests are colorectal cancer screening, Endoscopic Mucosal Resection and Endscopic Submucosal Dissection of advanced intestinal neoplasia. In 2007 I moved from the Academic Medical Centre in Amsterdam to the Leiden University Medical Centre where I was appointed Professor of Gastroenterology in 2014 holding my inaugural lecture entitled “Colon Cancer through the looking glass” on 18 September 2015.

In 2007 I received a Veni Fellowship from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO).
In 2018 I received a subsidy from ZonMw – The Netherlands Organisation for Health research and Development to perform a nationwide multicenter randomized clinical trial comparing endoscopic removal of rectal tumours using ESD with minimally invasive surgical removal with TAMIS. The results of this trial are expected in late 2024.