Tara Muijlwijk has been awarded The Amsterdam UMC Young Talent Fund. This fund provides excellent Amsterdam UMC PhD candidates the unique opportunity to follow a course or perform an internship at one of the top international research institutes.

Tara Muijlwijk is a PhD Student at the department of Otolaryngology / Head and Neck Surgery within the Tumor Biology & Immunology Laboratory. Her research focuses on understanding the tumor microenvironment (TME) and, in particular, immune infiltrate within Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma (HNSCC). She is setting up single cell RNA-sequencing (scRNA-seq) and fluorescent multiplex immunohistochemistry (mIHC). With these state-of-the-art methods, individual cells within the TME can be identified and characterized. With this information, Tara anticipates being able to identify specific signatures that may explain the variety of tumor classes, and the associations with clinical outcome which should, in future applications, allow better selection of patients for immunotherapies.

The analyses of scRNA-seq and mIHC are complex and continuously in development. Advanced skills in bioinformatics are also essential for this project.

During a three-month research traineeship at the Earle A. Chiles Research Institute (EACRI), a division of Providence Cancer Institute, Portland (Oregon, US) Tara will be trained in these methods. After her training, Tara anticipates to start with the data analyses for her PhD project.

In addition, with this research traineeship the most up-to-date scRNA-seq and mIHC analysis pipelines will be introduced at CCA and Amsterdam UMC to advance the in-house knowledge.