Research in the Lens lab is focused on understanding the molecular mechanisms that ensure error-free propagation of the genome during cell division, and on apprehending how defects in these mechanisms contribute to chromosomal instability (CIN) in cancer cells. Moreover, by developing original chromosome manipulation methods we aim to decipher how different (cancer) tissue types acquire and deal with the gains and losses of specific chromosomes.

Susanne Lens is professor of Genomic Instability at the Center of Molecular Medicine (CMM) of the University Medical Center Utrecht, Principal Investigator of Oncode Institute, and director of the PhD program Clinical and Translational Oncology (CTO) of the Graduate School of Life Sciences, Utrecht University. She obtained a master’s degree in Biomedical Sciences from the University of Leiden in 1993, and her PhD in Immunology from the University of Amsterdam in 1998. In that same year she was awarded a KWF young investigator fellowship to perform her postdoctoral work on apoptosis inhibitors in cancer in the lab of Jürg Tschopp at the University of Lausanne (Switzerland). In 2001 her research focus shifted from immunology and death receptor signaling, to understanding faithful chromosome segregation during mitosis (at the Netherlands Cancer Institute). She obtained a NWO-Vidi grant in 2005, and a NWO-Vici grant in 2011 for her research on chromosomal (in)stability and the chromosomal passenger complex. Since 2013 she is a full professor of the UMCU and UU and in 2017 she became a Principal Investigator of Oncode Institute.

Organizer of the EMBO Workshop on Chromosome Segregation and Aneuploidy (2013)

Member of the NWO Rubicon evaluation committee (2015)

Member of the NWO-ALW Open Program evaluation committee (2016)

Member evaluation committee of the Max Puritz Labs, Univ. of Vienna, Austria (2019)

Member of the selection committee for the ATIP-Avenir program (INSERM, France, 2022 and 2023)

Chair programme committee of NWO-LIFE (2021 and 2022)

ERC Advanced Grant Evaluation panel member (2017/2019/2021/2023)