PhD candidate ‘Circulating tumour DNA’

We are looking for a highly motivated PhD candidate with demonstrated interest in performing translational, clinically relevant research on cancer patients. This research will primarily be performed on longitudinally collected blood samples of patients with genitourinary cancer. Will you join our team?

The unique and individual patient is always the center of care at the Radboudumc. Unique characteristics include the genetics, biology and physiology, but also the psyche, social environment and wishes of the individual. The Department of Medical Oncology aims to personalize anti-cancer treatment for its patients with cancer; we are striving to improve patient stratification for targeted therapy and immunotherapy by matching optimal treatment based on their tumour biological characteristics within the framework of multidisciplinary molecular tumour boards (MTB).

We are also attempting to further optimize early response assessment and to improve early detection of disease recurrence, in a non-invasive manner utilizing serial blood tests. For this we closely work together with the Departments of Human Genetics and Pathology.

You will work within the Department of Human Genetics on introducing state-of-the art next-generation sequencing (NGS) assays (hybrid capture-based panel and shallow whole-genome sequencing) to non-invasively assess mutations, copy number alterations and molecular signatures from the cell-free circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA). This will be done in samples collected within our biobank, in the context of a prospective clinical trial in patients with prostate cancer (PROMPT, clinicaltrails.gov number NCT04746300) and in the context of urothelial cancer patients within an Eurostars Project 'PRECISE - First multi-modal liquid biopsy IVD to predict response to immune checkpoint inhibitors in cancer'.

For the analyses of NGS, you will be working closely together with fellow PhD students in the 'Liquid Biopsy' group and bioinformatic team at the Department of Human Genetics in collaboration with your supervisors from both the Department of Medical Oncology and Department of Human Genetics.

This PhD project is in part funded by the Eurostars Fund. Within this multidisciplinary framework your thesis will focus on non-invasive predictive biomarker discovery and validation. These results will form the basis of your PhD research. The research should result in a PhD thesis.

Tasks and responsibilities

• Test, optimize and utilize a ~60-gene NGS panel on the ctDNA from plasma samples from prospectively collected patient samples (genitourinary cancer patients).
• Optimize bioinformatic analyses pipeline for assessment of mutations, copy number alterations, mutational signatures and ctDNA tumour content.
• Validate clinical utility of longitudinal ctDNA assessment by correlative studies with prognosis and outcome from cancer therapy.
• Provide support and oversee the logistics and datamanagement of patients included in the Eurostars and PROMPT program.