Our Focus
Hormones are signalling molecules that act throughout our bodies, and instruct specific cells to differentiate, grow or die. In oncology, hormones are well known for their roles in breast cancer or prostate cancer, but these signalling molecules also play essential roles in other cancer types, including lung cancer and uterus cancer. Hormonal therapeutics, blocking or stimulating these hormonal signals inside the tumour, are among the oldest, most-prescribed and most-successful therapeutics in the treatment of patients with cancer. However, many patients do not benefit from such a hormonal treatment, and we therefore need to develop predictive tools to identify who would benefit from such hormonal therapy, and who would benefit from another treatment instead. Also, new therapeutic strategies are urgently needed, combining other therapies with hormonal medicines, to better treat these patients. In my research lab, we aim to understand how tumour cells can become resistant to hormone therapeutics, and develop new strategies on how to treat these patients instead. In summary, we aim to discover who to treat, how to treat them, and when to treat them, to improve outcome of patients with cancer.
About Wilbert Zwart
Wilbert Zwart
My Research
Wilbert Zwart is a senior group leader at the Netherlands Cancer Institute, division of Oncogenomics, where he started his independent lab in 2011. In 2003, he obtained his BSc and MSc at the University of Utrecht. In 2009, he received his Ph.D. (cum laude) from the University of Leiden, based on his work at the Netherlands Cancer Institute in the groups of Rob Michalides and Jacques Neefjes. Funded by a Dutch Cancer Society KWF fellowship, he performed his postdoctoral training with dr. Jason Carroll at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Research Institute, where he studied cofactor genomics in breast cancer (2009-2011). He joint Oncode Institute as junior groupleader in 2018, and got promoted in 2022 to Oncode senior groupleader. He is appointed as Professor Functional Genomics in Oncology at the Eindhoven University of Technology, and serves as chair for the NKI Translational Research Board and as theme leader Precision Oncology at the NKI. He leads the Oncode Research theme 5, “Identification of critical drug combinations and biomarkers for personalized cancer treatments.”
Awards
- 2025: NIH R01 Research Grant
- 2025: ASPIRE Award, The Mark Foundation
- 2024: Best Research Article of the Year, Non-Clinical, Dutch Endocrine Society
- 2022: Best Research Article of the Year, Non-Clinical, Dutch Endocrine Society
- 2021: Movember Distinguished Gentleman's Ride, PCF Challenge Award, Co-Recipient
- 2021: IDEA Development Award, US Department of Defense, Co-Recipient
- 2021: Prix Galien Research Award, Nominee and Runner-Up
- 2021: Best Research Article of the Year, Non-Clinical, Dutch Endocrine Society
- 2020: Best PhD Thesis of the Year, Dutch Endocrine Society, Supervisor of Suzan Stelloo
- 2019: IDEA Development Award, US Department of Defense, Co-Recipient
- 2019: ASPIRE Award, The Mark Foundation
- 2018: NWO TOP Grant, Co-Applicant with Reuven Agami
- 2016: Best Research Article of the Year, Clinical, Dutch Endocrine Society
- 2016: NWO Vidi Grant
- 2014: Pezcoller Fellowship
- 2014: Alpe d’HuZes Bas Mulder Award, Dutch Cancer Society
- 2012: Alpe d’HuZes Bas Mulder Award / KWF Young Investigator Award
- 2011: NWO Veni Grant
- 2009: Dutch Cancer Society KWF Fellowship
- 2009: NWO Rubicon Grant
- 2009: Thesis Award, Royal Dutch Microscopy Society
- 2009: PhD Thesis Cum Laude
- 2008: NKI-AVL Award
- 2006: Symposium Award, Dutch Cancer Society
Key Publications
- 2025 | Endometrial tumorigenesis involves epigenetic plasticity demarcating non-coding somatic mutations and 3D-genome alterations | Sebastian Gregoricchio et al. | Genome Biology | View publication
- 2025 | Epigenetic profiling identifies markers of endocrine resistance and therapeutic options for metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer | Tesa M. Severson et al. | Cell Reports Medicine | View publication
- 2025 | Fasting boosts breast cancer therapy efficacy via glucocorticoid activation | Nuno Padrão et al. | Nature | View publication
- 2023 | Luminal breast cancer identity is determined by loss of glucocorticoid receptor activity | Stefan Prekovic et al. | EMBO Molecular Medicine | View publication
- 2023 | Transposable Elements Are Co-opted as Oncogenic Regulatory Elements by Lineage-Specific Transcription Factors in Prostate Cancer | Giacomo Grillo et al. | Cancer Discovery | View publication
- 2022 | Drug-Induced Epigenomic Plasticity Reprograms Circadian Rhythm Regulation to Drive Prostate Cancer toward Androgen Independence | Simon Linder et al. | Cancer Discovery | View publication
- 2021 | Glucocorticoid receptor triggers a reversible drug-tolerant dormancy state with acquired therapeutic vulnerabilities in lung cancer | Stefan Prekovic et al. | Nature Communications | View publication
- 2020 | Prostate cancer reactivates developmental epigenomic programs during metastatic progression | Mark M. Pomerantz et al. | Nature Genetics | View publication
- 2019 | Cistrome Partitioning Reveals Convergence of Somatic Mutations and Risk Variants on Master Transcription Regulators in Primary Prostate Tumors | Parisa Mazrooei et al. | Cancer Cell | View publication
- 2018 | Characterizing steroid hormone receptor chromatin binding landscapes in male and female breast cancer | Tesa M. Severson et al. | Nature Communications | View publication
Members
| Wilbert Zwart Group leader, Division Molecular Pathology | Audrey Lacoste PhD Student | Bim Klein Technician |
| Chayenne Veerman PhD student | Emma Minnee PhD student | Floor Boxtel PhD Student |
| Jing Dong Technician | Karianne Schuurman Technician | Merel Roest PhD Student |
| Nils Eickhoff PhD | Nunno Padrao PhD | Sebastian Gregoricchio PostDoc |
| Tesa Severson Associate Staff Scientist | Witteke Dekker PhD Student | Yanis Zekri Postdoc |