Bart Westendorp's Biography

Bart Westendorp, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Utrecht University The Netherlands

Bart Westendorp is Assistant Professor at Utrecht University, The Netherlands. His primary research interest is to understand how decision-making is done in cells during normal cell division, cell stress, development, and cancer. He combines live cell imaging techniques with (single cell) transcriptomics to address this topic. Within the Department of Pathobiology he has focused on the functions and regulation of the E2F transcription factor family. This family of proteins acts in the center of the gene regulation machinery that controls cell division and tissue development. In 2015, Bart Westendorp has established the Single Cell Analysis Center, a research facility within Utrecht University for the genomic and transcriptomic analysis of single cells.

Modeling Heterogenous Responses to DNA-Damaging Cancer Drugs

Tuesday, 20 June 2023 at 08:30

Add to Calendar ▼2023-06-20 08:30:002023-06-20 09:30:00Europe/LondonModeling Heterogenous Responses to DNA-Damaging Cancer DrugsOrganoids and Spheroids Europe 2023 in Rotterdam, The NetherlandsRotterdam, The NetherlandsSELECTBIOenquiries@selectbiosciences.com

Unraveling mechanisms of acquired drug resistance in solid cancers is a major goal to improve the prognosis of cancer patients. An important concept in cancer drug resistance is the presence of (rare) drug-tolerant persister cells, which manage to withstand the effect of cancer medication by modifying their gene expression program, metabolism, and proliferation speed. But the cell-autonomous and environmental factors that determine whether -and how frequently- such persister cells emerge are still poorly understood. In addition, molecular events eventually triggering the emergence of fully drug-resistant relapsed tumors are enigmatic. I will show how we study tolerance and resistance to targeted inhibitors of DNA damage responses in bladder and ovarian cancer. One major challenge is the difficulty to study drug-tolerant persister cells in vivo. I will discuss the possibilities and opportunities for tumor spheroid models in this research field.

Add to Calendar ▼2023-06-19 00:00:002023-06-20 00:00:00Europe/LondonOrganoids and Spheroids Europe 2023Organoids and Spheroids Europe 2023 in Rotterdam, The NetherlandsRotterdam, The NetherlandsSELECTBIOenquiries@selectbiosciences.com

Corporate Sponsors