1997 …2024

Research activity per year

Personal profile

Personal webpage

Biography

Rene Bernards has been a staff scientist at the Netherlands Cancer Institute since 1992 and was appointed part time professor of molecular carcinogenesis at Utrecht University in 1994. His scientific accomplishments include the development of MammaPrint, the first clinically-used gene expression profile for breast cancer. To bring this discovery to the clinic he co-founded “Agendia”, a genomics-based diagnostic company that started offering the first microarray-based diagnostic test for the clinical management of breast cancer in 2004. His laboratory also developed the first shRNA vector for gene silencing in mammalian cells and used this vector to create the first genome-scale library of shRNA vectors. His laboratory has used this vector collection to identify biomarkers of response to cancer drugs and to identify particularly powerful drug combinations for the treatment of cancer, based on the concept of synthetic lethality. There are currently several clinical trials that test the efficacy of combination therapies suggested by his genetic screens.

Side activities

  • Founder, Qameleon Therapeutics
  • Staff scientist at Netherlands Cancer Institute, AmsterdamChief Scientific Officer Agendia NV, Amsterdam (part time)Visiting scientist, Genentech Inc. South San Francisco, USA.
  • Scientific Advisory Board, Gilde Healthcare fund.
  • AACR Laboratory Research Awards Selection Committee
  • Member International Scientific Advisory Board, Institut Gustav Roussy, Villejuif, France.
  • Member, Steering group, Center for Personalized Cancer Treatment.
  • 2012, Chair, Evaluation of the Cancer program at Max Delbruck Center, Berlin, Germany
  • Chair, Scientific Advisory board Merus BV, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
  • 2012, Co-Chair, Program Committee for the 2013 Annual Meeting of the AACR.
  • 2012 - 2013, Chair, Pezcoller Foundation-AACR International Award for Cancer Research Selection Committee.
  • Member Scientific Advisory Board, SiRIC of the Institut Curie, Paris.
  • Co-Chairperson of the 2013-2015 AACR Laboratory Research Awards Committee.
  • Member Scientific Committee Louis Jeantet Foundation.
  • Member AACR Nomination Committee.
  • Member AACR special conferences committee.
  • Member AACR publications committee.
  • BBA reviews on cancer, section editor
  • Molecular Cancer Research, editorial board member
  • Molecular Oncology, editorial board member
  • Cancer Discovery, research watch editor

Fellowship & awards

1985:                           Constantijn and Christiaan Huygens Fellowship, Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research.

1988:                           Edward Mallinckrodt Foundation award.

1989:                           Searle Scholarship award.

1992:                           Pionier Award, Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research.

2004:                           Josephine Nefkens award, Erasmus University, Rotterdam.

2005:                           Pezcoller Foundation-FECS Recognition for Contribution to Oncology.

2005:                           Member, Academia Europea.

2005:                           Spinoza award, Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research.

2005:                           Ernst W. Bertner Award for Cancer Research, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.

2007:                           Member, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.

2007:                           ESMO Lifetime Achievement Award in Translational Research in Breast Cancer.

2009                            Fellow, European Academy of Cancer Sciences.

2010                            ERC Advanced grant award.

2011                            Scrip Best Partnership Alliance Award for colorectal cancer collaboration with AstraZeneca and Agendia.

2012                           Queen Wilhelmina Research Prize, Dutch Cancer Society.

2013                           Academy Professor Prize, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years

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