Anke van den Berg

Anke van den Berg is a clinical molecular biologist in the pathology with a long standing interest in cancer research. She obtained her PhD in 1996 on renal cell cancer and was appointed as Professor in the biology of malignant lymphoma in 2010.

Her current research is focused B-cell lymphoma and lung cancer, with a special interest in genetic factors contributing to the development of these malignancies. In addition to these research activities, Anke van den Berg is also co-responsible for the molecular diagnostics tests performed in the department of Pathology. The B-cell lymphoma research is performed in close collaboration with Dr. Lydia Visser (immunologist), Dr. Joost Kluiver (noncoding RNA specialist) and Dr. Arjan Diepstra (hematopathologist) from the Department of Pathology and scientist from the Departments of Hematology and Genetics.

The research topics include the role of noncoding RNAs, the tumor cell microenvironment, genetic aberrations and susceptibility and the identification of biomarkers in B-cell lymphoma.

PRESENTATION 

Finding mistakes in lymphoma cells

One of the driver events in cancer development and also in B-cell lymphoma is the loss or gain of part of our genetic material (also known as DNA or chromosomes). In recent years it has become clear that these aberrations can be detected in the blood circulation and serve as a non-invasive way to monitor treatment response and disease activity.

The game idea that I would like to propose is related to detecting these aberrations by visual inspection of these data sets by a broad audience. This might be a more sensitive and accurate way to reliably identify presence of these aberrations as compared to currently available algorithms, which depend on pre-defined cut off values.