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Hanneke Van Laarhoven, MD, PhD

Amsterdam UMC
Amsterdam, Netherlands

Professor Hanneke W.M. van Laarhoven is professor of translational medical oncology at the University of Amsterdam, head of the Department of Medical Oncology, and board member of the Cancer Center Amsterdam of the Amsterdam University Medical Centers. Van Laarhoven is a staunch advocate of interdisciplinarity, as is evidenced by her her two PhDs: in Medical Oncology and Religious Studies.

Her translational research focuses on gastrointestinal cancer, specifically esophagogastric and pancreatic cancer. She has developed a unique research line at the crossroads of medical oncology, radiology/nuclear medicine, and tumour biology. Her group investigates the interplay between tumour cells and stromal cells, with a specific focus on the development of treatment resistance and possible implications for novel therapies. To facilitate this research, she invested in the creation of a large biobank with tumour and blood samples as well as patient derived cell lines and organoids of the patients under study.

She is leading several multi-centre investigator initiated clinical trials which include substantial correlative biomarker work. Furthermore, she is one of the founding mothers of a prospective database for the collection of real world clinical data and patient reported outcomes of patients with esophagogastric cancer (www.pocop.nl) and pancreatic cancer (www.pacap.nl).

As of 2021 she is faculty coordinator of the ESMO Gastrointestinal Tumours, non-Colorectal group, and the Young Investigator Task Force of the EORTC GI Group. She is a member of the ESMO Leadership Generation Task Force (2020-2023) and the Leadership Development Committee (2023-present).

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