Two collaborative cancer research projects supported through the Alpe d’HuZes/KWF Fund

Can a tumor’s own metabolism quietly damage its DNA? And how does obesity reshape the liver environment to control cancer that spreads there?

Through the Alpe d’HuZes/KWF Fund, ten new Oncode Institute collaborative research projects will start across the whole Oncode community. The projects bring together researchers from different fields to explore new ideas in cancer research and accelerate their translation toward future clinical and societal impact, ranging from immunotherapy and early detection to tumor biology and surgical imaging. Two of these projects involve researchers from our lab: Jurica and Arjan. Congrats to both!

Jurica Matkovic and Marco Novais da Cruz (Medema lab, Princess Máxima Center) will investigate how altered tumor metabolism drives genome instability. Their project explores how the metabolic state of a cancer cell may directly reshape its chromosomes, opening up new angles for understanding tumor evolution and treatment resistance.

Arjan Bassa, together with Allard van Renterghem (Voest lab, NKI) and Serena Vegna (Akkari lab, NKI), will study how obesity-related changes in the liver shape the immune response against metastatic cancer cells. By combining patient data, experimental models and metabolic analyses, the team aims to uncover immune mechanisms that could inform new strategies against liver metastases.