Amsterdam University Medical Center, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
The VUmc (Amsterdam, the Netherlands) is a global leader in research on HPV and cervical cancer screening, from biomarker discovery, development of new HPV tests to implementation studies and health economic modelling. The Stichting VUMC group coordinated large screening trials to compare self-sample HPV testing with clinician-based testing and to compare HPV with cytology screening. On the basis of the results of their own screening trials, VUMC has developed HPV transmission models and micro simulation models to evaluate the impact of HPV screening and vaccination on the cancer incidence and to evaluate the cost-effectiveness both within the Dutch and European setting. The Dutch modelling work has been used by the national health council to decide on the implementation of universal prophylactic vaccination and primary HPV screening. The VUmc is the consortium coordinator, the leader of workpackage 2 and contributes to the health-economic analyses in workpackage 5.
Prof. J. Berkhof
Prof. Berkhof is head of the Department of Epidemiology and Data Science. He has 20 years' experience in statistical and modelling research. He is responsible for the methodology and statistical data analyses of HPV screening trials, performed by Stichting VUMC. He was also the principal investigator of the IMPROVE self-sampling trial and is a member of the national health council in the Netherlands. He published >200 articles on HPV, methodology, cost-effectiveness, screening, public health and statistics.
Prof. R.D. Steenbergen
Molecular biologist and one of the research leaders of the Cancer Center Amsterdam. She has wide expertise in carcinogenesis and biomarker discovery research related to HPV-mediated transformation, in particular HPV DNA methylation. Within the institute, she is responsible for the discovery of molecular biomarkers for the early detection of cervical cancer and their assay optimization.
Dr. D.A. Heideman
Molecular biologist with over 15-year track record in translational research in oncology, focusing on exploring biomarkers and their possible role in early cancer detection and/or therapy response. She is responsible for the value of clinical laboratory services by providing advanced techniques and applying molecular information to the testing of human specimens. She has wide expertise in biomarker test development and validation research related to HPV-mediated carcinogenesis.
Dr. J. Bogaards
Dr. Bogaards has a training in theoretical biology and is a senior researcher on HPV transmission and disease modeling. He has over 10 years of experience in HPV modelling and developed one of the first 14 type HPV transmission model and used this model to evaluate herd effects when vaccinating women above the age of 20 and when vaccinating boys.
Dr. R. Donken
Epidemiologist with ample expertise in impact of HPV vaccination. Obtained her PhD at the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment in the Netherlands. After her PhD, Dr. Donken worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, BC Canada, focussing on the population-based impact of the HPV vaccine as well as optimal immunization schedules. She is currently the program manager for the European consortium for Risk-based cervical cancer screening (RISCC).
F. Inturrisi
Federica Inturrisi has a training in molecular biology and in epidemiology, with experience in epidemiological research on cancer. She is a PhD researcher at the Department of Epidemiology and Data Science focusing on risk-based screening strategies for cervical cancer, in particular within the new HPV primary cervical cancer screening program implemented in the Netherlands in 2017.
K. Kroon
Kelsi has a background in mathematics and statistics with an interest in the application of statistical methods and data science to medical data, in particular cancer data. She is currently doing a PhD in Biostatistics at the Department of Epidemiology and Data Science where she will focus on the development and validation of models to estimate HPV infection and cervical cancer risk profiles in women.
