Out of the box: removing the brain cells that you need

The box: what problem are you investigating?

"Three out of four people who receive radiotherapy for a brain tumor develop cognitive impairment, such as difficulty concentrating or remembering things. Physicians still don’t fully understand what causes these symptoms. We do observe a reduction of the white matter that normally surrounds nerve cells in the brain: myelin. I research the role of OPCs, oligodendrocyte precursor cells. These cells are part of the brain’s crucial maintenance system of white matter. We now know that they’re very sensitive to radiation, as I’ve recently discovered and published. So it makes sense to suspect that this is how radiation leads to the loss of white matter.”

How do you step outside the box?

“When radiation kills a large number of precursor cells in a certain part of the brain, it seems like the obvious choice to either leave the remaining cells alone, or to stimulate them further. But in my laboratory research, I’m removing even more of them. That might sound counterintuitive, but we know that these cells can regrow incredibly fast in healthy brains when a few surviving cells start dividing again. That’s exactly the kind of response I hope to trigger by first making it ‘worse’.”

How does it feel to step outside the box?

“When I go off the beaten track, I feel the thrill of fresh, untouched snow. I feel creativity, as well as tension because I’m entering unfamiliar territory. This is a completely new research field. Only two years ago, researchers first discovered how rapidly OPCs can divide, and that they can regrow when removed from the brain. I think it’s essential to be able to do high-risk research like this, which is now possible thanks to the ZonMw Off Road grant. It’s the only way to make unexpected discoveries and potentially uncover something extraordinary that helps us better understand the side effects of cancer treatments. Science is my passion: it’s a fundamental part of who I am.”