Alexander’s educational background is in physics (BSc) and nanoscience (MSc). His growing fascination for biology and medicine led him to pursue a PhD in biophysics at the University of Groningen. Subsequently, he decided to continue his journey in the Life Sciences branch as a Business Consultant. In this role he was helping both academic and industrial parties to obtain funding, establish partnerships, build consortia, conduct market research and develop commercialisation plans. At Oncode, Alexander leverages this expertise to support Oncode Researchers with company creation, acquiring funding, establishing collaborations and with other valorization strategies, ultimately creating impact for society.

Alina’s educational background is in psychology (BSc) and occupational health psychology (MSc). Being familiar with statistics and datasets, Alina worked in research assistant and data analysis jobs in both commercial and educational environments. At Oncode, Alina assists the Oncode Valorization Team with all necessary (legal) administrative support by performing data entry and data management tasks. In addition, she is responsible for the prevention officer tasks, given her academic background in psychology.

Amber Liu is a Business Developer at Oncode Institute. With a clinical pharmacy background from the University of Toronto, she has taken her patient-centric perspective in scouting for novel innovations in life sciences with high impact potential and supported their commercial development. Prior to Oncode, she developed funding strategies, business cases, conducted market assessments and new business development activities at strategic funding consultancies in The Netherlands. While at a health tech accelerator, her focus was on validating the business case of a given innovation and testing the value proposition with end-users. At Oncode, Amber facilitates the translation of research into clinical applications through identification and evaluation of innovative technologies or new therapies. This involves developing and implementing effective valorization strategies, fostering strong stakeholder relationships, and proactively engaging industry partners to pursue collaborative opportunities.

Dana is a Business Developer at the Oncode institute since the start of 2024. For the first year she was based at the Oncode Accelerator, leading project evaluation and due diligence for preclinical and early clinical assets and providing strategic recommendations. Before joining Oncode, she worked as a Business Developer at Cancer Research Horizons, within the University of Birmingham Enterprise, supporting researchers at Universities of Birmingham, Nottingham, Sheffield, York for a period of five years, gaining knowledge and experience in licensing and spinout formation. Her experience at Cancer Research UK prior to transitioning to a business role involved drug development with AstraZeneca during her postdoctoral research at the Cancer Research UK Scotland Centre. Her background is molecular and cellular biology (BSc and MSc at the University of Zagreb), further focusing on cancer biology during her PhD at the University of Strasbourg. She currently supports the Oncode Investigators in all stages of project development and leads on all aspects of valorization strategy and translation activities, aimed at creating impact for patients.

With an educational background in law, Emil has gained over 25 years of experience as a patent attorney and business developer. In his capacity as business development manager at the Flemish Institute for Biotechnology (VIB) he drafted and negotiated licensing, R&D and IP agreements and helped creating two start-up companies. He joined ActoGeniX as general counsel and was responsible for all business development, legal and IP matters. The company raised a total of €45MM in three consecutive financing rounds. Emil is a registered European patent attorney and acts as CEO of Allero Therapeutics. At Oncode Emil helps to translate fundamental research to the market by developing and executing IP strategies, advising and assisting in company creation and building and maintaining stakeholder relations.

Harma has an MSc in Biotechnology and a PhD in Cancer Genomics. Having worked more than 15 years in Life Science industry at Philips and Cergentis, she has extensive experience in commercial development, while always maintaining a close connection to research. As a Business Developer at Oncode she will use this expertise to support Oncode Investigators with all valorization strategies that can make their research impactful for patients as soon as possible.

With more than fifteen years of experience as legal secretary and paralegal in a corporate, commercial environment, Mariëlle provides Oncode with all necessary legal (administrative) support, acts as secretary to the Supervisory Boards of both Oncode Institute and Oncode B.V., acts as the valorization and organizational coordinator and manages the Technology Development programme.

Saharla Ahmed joined the Valorization Team in 2020 as a Business Development Manager. Before joining Oncode, Saharla worked as senior consultant at Catalyze BV., where she supported and advised a range of scientists and companies across the life sciences industry. Prior to that, she worked in the Innovations Division of the Wellcome Trust in the U.K., where she was responsible for managing an international portfolio of early-stage product development programmes covering therapeutics, vaccines, diagnostics and medical devices. Saharla has a BSc in Genetics and a MSc in Intellectual Property Law, from Queen Mary University of London.

Shobhit is the Fund Manager of Oncode Oncology Bridge Fund. Prior to joining Oncode Bridge Fund, he was an early stage investor at UvA/AMC Ventures for 4 years, where he made investments in tech and life science spin offs from the two institutions. Before UvA ventures, Shobhit supported early stage ventures with fundraising and business strategy at ACE incubator in Amsterdam. He trained as a pharmacologist at the University of Oxford and started his drug discovery career at Pfizer UK. Shobhit holds a PhD in immunology from the University of Amsterdam.

Over 17 years of experience in Molecular Biology, Yuva completed her MSc. degree at EMBL Heidelberg and conducted her PhD research on the topic of Chromatin and Biomedical Genetics at Hubrecht Institute as a Marie-Curie fellow. Interested in clinical aspects of the research, she joined to oncology specialized clinical research organization SMS-oncology, gaining experience both in clinical trial management (early phase paediatric and adult trials) and Business Development aspects. At Oncode, she is driving the industry engagement programme to enable new alliances and collaborations between Oncode and biopharma to fast-forward research and innovation. Furthermore, working closely with Oncode Investigators, she supports technology, clinical and IP assessments for efficiently translating fundamental research into clinical benefit. She is the founder and designer at Art 4 Science, a scientific visualization – graphic design company.

Valentina joined the Valorization Team in 2023 as Intellectual Property Analyst at Oncode Institute, where she helps transform scientific discoveries into innovations that advance the fight against cancer. Working closely with business developers, she helps shaping IP strategies that best support each project’s path toward real-world impact.

Originally from Colombia, Valentina holds a degree in Biotechnology and Neuroscience and earned her PhD in Medical Biosciences at Radboud University in the Netherlands, where she used human-relevant tissue models to study novel anticancer protein therapies. With a strong background in translational biomedical research, she is passionate about bridging science and society—connecting groundbreaking discoveries with opportunities to improve patients’ lives and contributing to Oncode’s mission to outsmart cancer.