✨ Happy New Year! ✨ As we step into 2026, we want to thank all of you for being part of our journey in 2025. Together, we’ve achieved incredible milestones we’re looking forward to continuing to make a difference in cancer research. Let’s make 2026 a year of collaboration, innovation and inspiration

Inspired by an initiative from OLVG Hospital, team leaders, managers and directors stepped into care roles during Operation Oliebol including Henri van Luenen & @vanrheenenlab.bsky.social Not because they had to, but to support colleagues working on New Year’s Eve

🎓 There are more and more options for breast-conserving treatment for breast cancer patients. However, PhD candidate Eva Heeling shows that aren’t offered the same options across all hospitals. More: www.nki.nl/news-events/...

Eleven research teams at the Netherlands Cancer Institute are starting new cancer projects thanks to funding from the Dutch Cancer Society. From personalized therapies to smarter detection, these projects push science closer to patients. Thank you KWF ❤️💙 Learn more: www.nki.nl/news-events/...

Corticosteroids may re-sensitize metastatic HR+ breast cancer to endocrine therapy by mimicking cortisol-driven fasting responses. Our study, published in Nature, shows a potential new use for a cheap and widely used drug class. ➡️ www.nki.nl/news-events/...

Cells appear as chaotic as a big city, but transcription factors behave like packages and are usually delivered smoothly. PhD candidate Jos Meeussen was able to track-and-trace them under his microscope: www.nki.nl/news-events/...

💡Welcome to #EULIFEspotlight! This month we celebrate Henri van Luenen, Director of Operations at @nkinl.bsky.social, who moderated the session “Research security in practice: making space for an honest conversation”, organised by EU-LIFE at the EU Conference on #ResearchSecurity 🔗 bit.ly/4hPXbhw

Joost Agelink van Rentergem received a Vidi grant for research on cognitive impairment ➡️ www.nki.nl/news-events/...

Last Thursday I defended my PhD at @erasmusmc.bsky.social Thank you so much to all that joined the defence and to @maxkoppers.bsky.social, @madelonmaurice.bsky.social, Celia Berkers and Vered Raz for the great scientific discussion.

Honored to welcome Prof. Charles Swanton for this year’s Piet Borst Lecture ✨ The afternoon opened with a beautiful cello intermezzo 🎻 Inspiring from start to finish.”

A new @nature.com.web.brid.gy paper by @peeperlab.bsky.social shows that T cells that cling to cancer cells are the most potent killers. These clusters, long overlooked, can be isolated directly from tumors www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Our new paper is out in Nature - online today! Huge congrats to shared first authors Sofía Ibáñez-Molero & Johanna Veldman, the whole team & all collaborators. 📄 Open-access paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

At the end of the rainbow 🌈 📷 Zowi Huinen

🎓 Patients who survived (non-)Hodgkin lymphoma have a higher risk of cardiovascular diseases or subsequent malignancies. Yvonne Geurts successfully defended her thesis showing that that a better understanding of these risks contributed to improved & risk-based follow-up care. Congratulations Yvonne!

Ribosomes are just like people. They are diverse, they can dance, collide, and experience stress. During stress, the translation process plays a key role in the development of cancer, a discovery made by PhD candidate Sofia Ramalho ➡️ www.nki.nl/news-events/... @sofiaramalho.bsky.social

How can we detect cancer earlier? Early detection of cancer often leads to less invasive treatment and increased chance of recovery. That’s why our researchers and physicians work hard to answer this question. Learn more about their search in this video ➡️ www.youtube.com/watch?v=sa1M...

During the replication process, cells can hit the pause button if something goes wrong, before starting the next phase. PhD candidate Frank van Gemert identified a protein that plays a key role. ➡️ www.nki.nl/news-events/...

Congratulations to @benjaminrowland.bsky.social for receiving an @erc.europa.eu Synergy Grant together with TU Delft, University of Edinburgh and @mit.edu / @institutcurie.bsky.social he will work on the GeneMotors project to unravel how SMC proteins pull DNA into loops. More: bit.ly/4osZjOJ

Thanks to support from the Dutch Cancer Society , researcher Marjanka Schmidt and her team are expanding the Hebon study to include more and more diverse participants in hereditary breast and ovarian cancer research. More: www.nki.nl/news-events/...

Proud! Our scientific director Thijn Brummelkamp was a guest at the “Uitblinkerslunch” (Lunch for Outstanding Achievers) hosted by King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima.

What a great recognition for our inspiring scientist and professor Karin de Visser: she received the Josephine Nefkens Prize 2025. Congratulations Karin! 🎉 #NKI #fundamentalresearch #cancerresearch #oncology #breastcancer #cancerimmunology

The results of the SUPREMO trial are in and published in @nejm.org. Results show that radiotherapy can be safely omitted as a treatment for many breast cancer patients who have had a mastectomy and were treated with anti-cancer drugs ➡️ www.nki.nl/news-events/...

🚀 We’re hiring! Join our team at the NKI as a Postdoc, using Quantitative Membrane Proteomics to design novel cancer immunotherapies! Best of two worlds from the Voest and Lindeboom Labs. Cutting-edge proteomics, translational immunotherapy and world-class instrumentation? let’s connect! 🔬💡

Thanks to KWF Dutch Cancer Society Esther Lips and her colleagues will be able to continue their search to find out which women with DCIS will require treatment and which do not ➡️ www.nki.nl/news-events/...

#EANO2025 was a blast! Thanks to the travel grant of the Utrecht CEN PhD program, I could present our work on the blood-brain barrier in brain metastases 🧠🔬

Are you excited to uncover the molecular mechanisms of actin filament assemblies that drive cell migration using cryo-EM? Only 1.5 week to apply for this exciting PhD position in my newly established lab at the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam: www.werkenbijavl.nl/vacatures/ph...

What if parts of our DNA accidentally end up in the wrong place? What can be bad for healthy cells could be an advantage for tumor cells, observed PhD candidate Soufyan Lakbir, who loves his experiments. Soufyan Lakbir will defend his thesis on October 29 ➡️ www.nki.nl/news-events/...

Big congrats to the MARI team for winning the NKI Patient Impact Award! Their work helps breast cancer patients avoid unnecessary surgery. 💙 #NKI #BreastCancer #Innovation Read more ➡️ www.nki.nl/news-events/...

#ESMO2025 kicks off in Berlin! Our NKI team is in Berlin to share research, lead discussions, and connect with oncology experts from around the world. 💙 #Oncology #CancerResearch See all NKI input: bit.ly/4okZxXF

🧬 We are very proud: Our scientific director @thijnbrummel.bsky.social has received the Spinoza Prize, the highest distinction in Dutch science. Thijn’s groundbreaking genetic research helps uncover how cancer cells work ➡️ bit.ly/494IXXH #SpinozaPrize #Science #Research #Innovation #CancerResearch

🎓 Immunotherapy for liver tumors seems almost impossible, but PhD candidate Christel Ramirez @unileiden.bsky.social discovered a way to prevent immune cells from being ‘bribed’ by cancer cells. She will defend her thesis on October 15 ➡️ www.nki.nl/news-events/...

Are exhausted T cells functionless? Absolutely not! We found that dysfunctional T cells are key initiators of early tissue responses to PD-1 blockade and equipped to rapidly regain anti-tumor function via restoration of translational control. See new preprint from the lab led by Paulien Kaptein

Are you a postdoc looking for a new challenge and do you match the profile? Apply to join us! Especially, if you have experience with addressing the mechanisms underlying telomere maintenance, DNA replication or DNA repair. www.werkenbijavl.nl/vacatures/po...

PhD candidate @dkloosterman.bsky.social @unileiden.bsky.social identified a type of macrophage that contributes to tumor growth in the brain. He and his colleagues were the first to discover how these cells develop. Daan Kloosterman will defend his thesis on October 8 www.nki.nl/news-events/...

“It’s amazing to be the very first person to understand something at such a miniscule scale”. From October 1st, junior group leader Wout Oosterheert will give a boost to fundamental cancer research at the Netherlands Cancer Institute ➡️ www.nki.nl/news-events/...

🦠 Gut bacteria behavior sheds light on cancer immunotherapy response. Researchers at the Netherlands Cancer Institute have now found new leads: by taking a fresh approach, they managed to uncover promising clues that could open new paths for treatment ➡️ www.nki.nl/news-events/...

Congrats @agamilab.bsky.social, @peeperlab.bsky.social & @thijnbrummel.bsky.social for being shortlisted in this year’s ‪@cancergrand.bsky.social‬! They’ll compete for the chance to receive up to £20m to make radical progress against cancer’s toughest challenges bit.ly/41KM1DS #CancerGrandChallenges

#FederatedLearning enhances #prostate cancer detection https://doi.org/10.1148/ryai.240485#FederatedLearning#prostaterug.nl @nkinl.bsky.social #MICCAI2025 #imaging #AI #ComputerVision #MachineLearning

NEW Review of neoadjuvant #immunotherapy in melanoma by Francesca Fallarino & Christian Blank @nkinl.bsky.social discusses where the field is heading next in terms of understanding immune education in therapy resistance and biomarker-driven personalization #immunology #oncology #cancer #melanoma

We scrambled the genome. What happens when you cut, flip, and relocate DNA at scale? 🧬 A new method from the Netherlands Cancer Institute reveals surprising rules of genome organization. Publications in Science & Nature Structural & Molecular Biology. Read more ➡️ www.nki.nl/news-events/...

CCE kicks off its first Exchange Program! Adrià Marcos @vhio.bsky.social trained at @nkinl.bsky.social, and Zuhir Elkarghali (NKI) will soon join VHIO. Strengthening collaboration across #CCE 🚀 @nct-heidelberg.bsky.social @gustaveroussy.fr @ki.se @crukcamcentre.bsky.social

Check out our spotlight article on an exciting study! Lipid-sensing chemosensors influence macrophage behavior. Really enjoyed reflecting on this work and what it could mean for macrophage targeting approaches! 😊

Featuring #AlphaBridge features from @alvarezsalmoral.bsky.social, with @jonasteuwen.bsky.social and team, our new work from @nkinl.bsky.social nl.bsky.social @oncodeinstitute.bsky.social . Have a look at ahmpc.eu for more!

Big congratulations to @sarahmoser.bsky.social @oncodeinstitute.bsky.social for being named a 2025 International Birnstiel Award laureate! Selected from 87 nominations, Sarah is one of just six doctoral researchers worldwide to receive this prestigious recognition in molecular life sciences.

🌟 Partner spotlight: Netherlands Cancer Institute @nkinl.bsky.social. In #PredictAYA, the research group on personalised oncology in adolescents and young adults leads communication, dissemination and stakeholder engagement and supports studies on late effect of cancer treatment on European cohorts.

New ERC Starting Grant @erc.europa.eu for Gordon Watt to study how autoimmune disease and cancer treatments interact in shaping the risk of second breast cancer. His team will explore how the immune system influences long-term cancer outcomes ➡️ #ERCStG bit.ly/3VyvvDs #ERCStG #cancerresearch

Researcher Hendrik Messal is starting his own lab! He will explore how the tumor environment shapes cancer growth combining imaging, genetics & data science. More: www.nki.nl/news-events/...

Breaking the chain: uncovering a hidden weakness in PARP-resistant cancers ➡️ www.nki.nl/news-events/... #fundamentalresearch #cancerresearch #NKI #breastcancer #ovariancancer

We all know that cancers -even from the same subtype- are highly heterogeneous right? In a new study we asked whether this was also the case for the three-dimensional organization of the genome in breast cancer. The answer: it’s complicated. www.cell.com/iscience/ful...

Thrilled to share our latest work, just published in @nature.com ⬇ www.nature.com/articles/s41... We discovered that PARP inhibitors 💊 trigger histone eviction from the chromatin and this creates a hidden vulnerability in PARPi resistant tumors. 🧵 (1/8)