Rogier Versteeg, Professor of Genetics at the University of Amsterdam, has been an Einstein Visiting Fellow at the Berlin Institute of Health at Charité (BIH) in the field of cancer research since 2019. In his second funding period, he will be working with Angelika Eggert, Einstein Professor of Pediatric Oncology Research, to investigate the causes of relapse in neuroblastoma patients. Neuroblastoma is the third most common type of childhood cancer and even when they have been medically cured, neuroblastoma patients often suffer a relapse. One reason for this could be high phenotypic plasticity, the ability of cells to adapt to their environment. In its search for a promising combination of pharmaceutical drugs, the project pools resources from Charité, the BIH, the Max Delbrück Center, and the University of Amsterdam. The researchers will be studying rare tumor cells that have survived complete remission of symptoms.
