Arzu Umar's Biography

Arzu Umar, Group Leader, Erasmus Medical Center Rotterdam/Josephine Nefkens Institute

Dr. Arzu Umar obtained her MSc degree in Biology from the University of Utrecht in 1998. In the same year she started her PhD research at the department of Reproduction & Development, Erasmus MC Rotterdam. She defended her thesis ‘Male genital tract development: looking at the protein side of life’ in 2003, and shortly worked as a post-doc at the department of Neurology within the Erasmus MC. In 2004, she obtained a personal stipend from the Dutch Cancer Society (KWF) and, as a KWF-fellow, she did a post-doc at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, WA, USA, where she initiated her work on breast cancer proteomics and biomarker discovery using laser capture microdissection of breast tissue and high resolution mass spectrometry. From 2006-2008, she continued this work as a post-doc at the department of Medical Oncology, Erasmus MC. As a result of this study, she identified protein markers that predict tamoxifen therapy-resistance in breast cancer, which was published in the highest ranking proteomics journal (MCP). In addition, dr. Umar was awarded the AACR-Aflac Scholar-in-training award at the 2008 AACR Annual Meeting.
Dr. Umar has been appointed as junior group leader of breast cancer proteomics within the Cancer Genomics Centre (2009), and the Molecular Medicine post-graduate School of the Erasmus MC (2010). She is currently expanding her research activities in the direction of identification and validation of markers for chemotherapy-resistance, prognostic markers for aggressive disease, early detection markers, as well as metabolomics, phosphoproteomics, and functional interaction studies.