Michiel Van der Heijden

Since starting my PhD at the Kern lab (Johns Hopkins University) in 2002, I have been interested in understanding the differential sensitivity to cancer treatment.

In 2005, I completed my PhD in pancreatic cancer genetics and started my internal medicine training. From 2009-2011, I joined the lab of Rene Bernards at the NKI as a postdoc, to study resistance to targeted therapy in breast and colon cancer. After completing my medical oncology fellowship in 2013, I started my own research group at the NKI and joined the medical oncology faculty as a clinician.

My research focuses on understanding drug sensitivity in bladder cancer and the most optimal application of immunotherapy. We are particularly interested in the neoadjuvant setting, where we aim to manipulate the tumor-immune microenvironment to improve the chances of inducing a durable response to immunotherapy.