To understand why some cancer patients respond better to therapy than others, I think it is crucial that we obtain molecular measurements from the patient while they are receiving treatment. We can integrate these molecular measurements with pharmacokinetic data to unravel where the differences in response lie – for targeted inhibitors; is the drug reaching all the cells? Is the target inhibited, and if so, is it leading to proliferation arrest or cell death? Are there particular sensitivity or resistance mechanisms active? We are working on this in a unique-high-risk project funded by the KWF; collaborating with Jelle Wesseling (NKI/LUMC) and Noel de Miranda (LUMC).
More generally I am interested in developing mechanistic computational models of how cells respond to anticancer drugs; and in developing efficient and robust strategies for statistical inference with multiple sources of data.