Michel van den Heuvel
Michel van den Heuvel, MD, heads the department of respiratory diseases and besides leads a research group on thoracic oncology that focusses on optimizing / personalizing systemic treatment. He has a specific focus on early biomarker development. Currently, as principal investigator of the Dedication consortium his aim is to develop multidimensional biomarkers for the outcome of immunotherapy. In close collaboration with many national and international research groups exhaled breath and liquid biopsy-based diagnostic strategies are being developed that can be used as predictive decision tools as well as, by ways of measuring minimal residual disease, help on treatment decisions early during treatment. By combining this with clinical decision support tools and AI-based radiologic and pathologic image analysis he hopes to achieve the goal to prevent ineffective treatment for this fragile patient population.