Great news! Dr. Edwin van der Pol has today been awarded no less than €5 million as the principal investigator of the Secret-omics project (a collaboration between Amsterdam UMC, Erasmus MC, Leiden University and LUMC) by the Dutch Research Council (NWO).
For more than fifteen years, the NWO Perspectief programme, together with the Ministry of Economic Affairs, has encouraged investment in technological innovation with major societal and economic impact. This year, funding from the programme, supplemented by contributions from industry, will enable 12 consortia to launch their research projects.
Reinventing how we predict cancer treatment response
Edwin van der Pol, an assistant professor affiliated with Cancer Center Amsterdam and programme leader of Secret-omics, focuses on a major challenge in cancer care: current tests, such as biopsies and scans, often do not provide enough information to predict in advance whether a cancer treatment will be effective.
Secret-omics will develop new blood tests to measure extracellular vesicles originating from tumors. These particles may predict how a tumor will respond to treatment, but they are small and occur only in low concentrations in the blood.
Thanks to this funding, we can take important steps toward developing precision diagnostics that can directly benefit cancer patients
Developing advanced techniques
“We will initially use the funding to develop advanced techniques to isolate extremely small (30 nm to 1 µm) extracellular vesicles originating from tumor tissue from the blood of patients with stage IV lung cancer and patients with multiple myeloma,” says Edwin van der Pol.
Afterwards, Secret-omics will develop methods to extract proteins, metabolites and RNA molecules from these vesicles. These molecules contain valuable insights into tumor activity and mechanisms of therapy resistance. The resulting data will be integrated into an AI model that will ultimately help researchers select the most effective therapy for each individual patient.
A powerful recognition
Edwin van der Pol: “I am incredibly happy with this award. It feels like a wonderful recognition of our work and a tremendous boost for our team. Thanks to this funding, we can take important steps toward developing precision diagnostics that can directly benefit cancer patients. We are proud that NWO recognizes and supports the potential and impact of our research.”
