Laura J. van 't Veer

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Laura Johanna van 't Veer
Born (1957-03-02) 2 March 1957 (age 68)
NationalityDutch
Alma mater University of Amsterdam B.Sc. in biology and M.Sc. in molecular oncology
University of Leiden Ph.D.
AwardsIARC Medal of Honor (2005)
ESMO Lifetime Achievement Award for Translational Research in Breast Cancer (2007)
Breast Cancer Research Fund (BCRF-Pink Ribbon US) grant award (2007) (2008)
European Inventor Award (2015)
Scientific career
Fields Clinical medicine
Institutions Netherlands Cancer Institute
Agendia BV
University of California, San Francisco
Thesis  (1989)

Laura Johanna van 't Veer (born 1957) is a Dutch molecular biologist and clinical molecular geneticist. She is group leader molecular pathology for the Department of Pathology and Division of Experimental Therapy of The Netherlands Cancer Institute. [1] van't Veer is now Leader of the Breast Oncology Program [2] and Associate Director Applied Genomics at the HDFCCC. [3] She is also the founder of the company Agendia, [4] which provides a genomic test that analyzes 70 specific genomes within a tumor to assess the risk of breast cancer. [5]

Contents

Education

Ever since high school van't Veer has always had an interest in biology. Her high school biology teacher, who was doing research at the University of Amsterdam, brought university level education to her which acted as a pivotal moment to her education. At the age of 14, van't Veer found a keen interest in genes. These parts of her youth led van't Veer to pursue a career in medical research. [6]

She attended the University of Amsterdam from 1976 to 1984 and received a B.Sc. in biology and M.Sc. in molecular oncology. According to van't Veer, her "entire undergraduate schooling was dedicated to biology". [7] She continued her studies at the University of Leiden from 1984 to 1989. She would earn her PhD focusing on the study of oncogene activation and tumorigenesis. van't Veer was specifically researching why ovarian cells become malignant.

Career

In 2003, van 't Veer cofounded Agendia B.V. in 2003, serving as the chief operating officer of Agendia B.V. until June 12, 2007. In this company, she contributed her invention, MammaPrint. The New England Journal of Medicine published a trial on the MINDACT [8] that 46% of clinically high-risk breast cancer patients can safely avoid chemotherapy treatment according to the low-risk MammaPrint test result. [9] She continues her work with the company today as chief research officer. [10] She was featured in the cover story of the May–June 2006 issue of Cancer World. [11] With her colleagues in the field, she has been awarded a number of patents related to cancer treatment. [12] She has been a member of the Science Policy and Government Affairs Committee of the American Association for Cancer Research since 2014. From 2013 to 2014, she was a member of the Education and Training Committee. [13] She has more than 80 peer reviewed publications to her name. [14]

van't Veer's research focuses on personalized medicine by analyzing the specific genetic makeup of both the individual tumors and patients. [15] The result of this individualization is the opportunity for physicians to treat their patients with the most effective selection of therapy.

van 't Veer's MammaPrint is a software technology that assesses a cancer patient's risk of recurring of breast cancer to better triage the need for costly and straining chemotherapy treatment. MammaPrint led van't Veer to win the 2015 European Inventors Award. [16] The societal benefit is reducing the exposure of chemotherapy to patients that do not need it. Agendia was ranked in 2015 as one of the "world’s 14 leading molecular diagnostics firms by revenue." [17]

Awards and merits

References

  1. ↑ "Profile of Laura J. van 't Veer, PhD". University of San Francisco. Retrieved 2015-02-26.
  2. ↑ https://cancer.ucsf.edu/research/programs/breast
  3. ↑ https://cancer.ucsf.edu/people/van-t-veer.laura
  4. ↑ https://agendia.com/
  5. ↑ https://agendia.com/our-tests/
  6. ↑ https://ascopost.com/issues/august-10-2019/how-laura-j-van-t-veer-phd-became-an-expert-in-genetic-testing-for-breast-cancer/
  7. ↑ https://ascopost.com/issues/august-10-2019/how-laura-j-van-t-veer-phd-became-an-expert-in-genetic-testing-for-breast-cancer/
  8. ↑ https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1602253
  9. ↑ https://profiles.ucsf.edu/laura.vantveer
  10. ↑ "PROF. DR. LAURA VAN 'T VEER". AGENDIA. Retrieved 2019-10-23.
  11. ↑ Beishon, Marc (May–June 2006). "Laura van 't Veer: the person behind personalised treatments" (PDF). Cancer World: 6–13. Retrieved 3 March 2015.
  12. ↑ "Patents by Inventor Laura J. Van't Veer". justia.com. justia. Retrieved 3 March 2015.
  13. ↑ "Standing Committees". American Association for Cancer Research. Retrieved 2019-10-23.
  14. ↑ "Appendix BSpeaker Biographical Sketches". National Academy of Sciences. Retrieved 2019-10-23.
  15. ↑ https://www.bcrf.org/researchers/laura-van-t-veer/
  16. ↑ https://www.epo.org/en/news-events/european-inventor-award/meet-the-finalists/laura-vant-veer
  17. ↑ https://www.epo.org/en/news-events/european-inventor-award/meet-the-finalists/laura-vant-veer
  18. ↑ "Annual Harry and Edith Gladstein Visiting Professor Lecture Indiana University, School of Medicine, Department of Medicine". Indiana University. Retrieved 26 February 2015.
  19. ↑ "2020 Inductees". Giants of Cancer Care. Retrieved 2021-12-12.
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