Radiobiology of MRT European Working Group
European Working Group
Who We Are
Dr. Julie Nonnekens (contact person)
Associate Professor and Group Leader Radiobiology of MRT.
Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Department of Radiology & Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Genetics
Dr. Julie Nonnekens received her MSc in Medical Biotechnology at Wageningen University, The Netherlands in 2009. She obtained her PhD in cancer biology with the focus on DNA repair mechanisms at the University of Toulouse, France in 2013. After that, she was a postdoc at the Hubrecht Institute working on ribosome biogenesis in cancer and longevity. In 2014 Julie joined the Erasmus MC in Rotterdam, The Netherlands with a joined appointment as Associate Professor at the Department of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine and Department of Molecular Genetics. Her group is studying DNA damage repair mechanisms to better understand the underlying radiobiology of molecular radionuclide anticancer treatment in order to ultimately optimize treatment regimens.
Julie has received several (young investigator) awards and is principal investigator on various research grants including the prestigious ERC starting grant. She is chair of the Netherlands Society for Radiobiology (NVRB) .
Dr. Filipa Mendes
Principal Researcher at the Radiopharmaceutical
Sciences Group, Instituto Superior Técnico (IST),
University of Lisboa, Portugal
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Filipa Mendes is a Principal Researcher at the Radiopharmaceutical Sciences Group from the Department of Nuclear Sciences and Engineering and member of the Centre for Nuclear Sciences and Technologies (C2TN) of the Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), University of Lisboa, Portugal. She is the Coordinator of the Thematic Research Line “Radiopharmaceutical Sciences and Health Physics” of C2TN.
She completed a PhD in Cellular Biology at the University of Lisboa in 2004, being a visiting graduate student at the University of Virginia, USA from 2001 to 2003. After a postdoc at the National Institute of Health in Lisboa, Filipa joined the Radiopharmaceutical Sciences Group at IST in 2008, and from 2013 to 2015 she held a prestigious FCT Principal Investigator Development Grant to establish her research team. Since 2016 she is a tenured researcher at IST, and her multidisciplinary scientific activity is focused on merging advances in cell and molecular biology with chemistry (radiopharmaceutical and medicinal) for the development of innovative approaches for molecular imaging and targeted therapy. Present research interests of her team include the pre-clinical biological evaluation of probes for cancer theranostics, particularly the establishment and characterization of advanced 3D cell models to be explored for the assessment the biological effects of radiation.
Filipa Mendes is/was PI of several grants and one industry research contract. She is the author of 60 publications in the radiopharmaceutical sciences field and holds 2 patents. She received several research awards, as well as excellence in teaching honours.
Dr. Bart Cornelissen
Associate Professor and Head of the "Nuclear Medicine and Biology" Team
at UMCG, Department of Nuclear Medicine, Groningen, the Netherlands,
and the “Radiopharmacy and Molecular Imaging” team at the University of Oxford, Department of Oncology, Oxford, UK.
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Bart is Associate Professor at the University Medical Center Groningen, the Netherlands, where he is based, and heads the Nuclear Medicine and Biology team at the Department of Nuclear Medicine, since 2021. He also hold an honorary appointment at Oxford University's Department of Oncology and the Nuffield Department of Surgery, where he heads the Radiopharmaceuticals and Molecular Imaging group, since early 2013. Bart trained in chemistry and radiochemistry at the Universities of Hasselt and Ghent, Belgium. He obtained his PhD in radiopharmaceutical sciences from the University of Ghent in 2004 and spent several years at the University of Toronto as a post-doctoral fellow before joining the University of Oxford in 2007.
His research aims to develop new radioisotope-labelled compounds for the imaging of tumour biology, with a focus on DNA damage repair imaging, and other hallmarks of cancer.
Dr Cornelissen has published more than 120 papers on the subject of PET and SPECT imaging, and radionuclide therapy, in oncology, and holds several patents.
b.t.cornelissen@umcg.nl / bart.cornelissen@oncology.ox.ac.uk
Dr. Samantha Terry
Reader/Associate Professor in Radiobiology.
School of Medical Engineering and Imaging Sciences
King’s College London, London UK
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Dr. Samantha Terry, a biologist, obtained her PhD in Radiation Biology with a focus on the mechanisms of radiation-induced chromosomal damage at the University of St Andrews, UK, in 2010. Her postdoc at the University of Oxford investigated the influence of the density of chromatin packing on the therapeutic efficacy of molecular radiotherapies. Samantha then moved to an industry-funded postdoc on radionuclide imaging of the tumor microenvironment and monitoring therapy response in tumor and arthritis models at the Radboud UMC, Nijmegen, the Netherlands, in 2011.
Since 2015, Samantha Terry has started her own research group at King’s College London, UK, to determine how radionuclides used for therapy or imaging affect the cells they are targeting in order to predict how radionuclides and radiopharmaceuticals can be more efficacious. Questions to answer for a whole range of radionuclides are:
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How can therapeutic radionuclides be used to maximize tumor cell kill for the same amount of radioactivity whilst minimizing damage to healthy tissues?
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How important is subcellular localization?
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Does the cell cycle affect response?
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How can radionuclides be made more effective, in terms of combination therapies?
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How safe are imaging radionuclides?
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How do radionuclides and external beam differ in their biological effects?
Samantha Terry has received many grants from industry partners, several early career grants and is principal investigator on various research grants. She is also active on twitter (@syaterry) and acts on organizing committees for molecular radiotherapy meetings, as editorial board member for Nuclear Medicine and Biology, as well as member of the Inflammation and Infection Committee at the European Association of Nuclear Medicine.
Prof. Marika Nestor
Professor and group leader at Uppsala University, Sweden.
CEO and founder of Akiram Therapeutics
Marika Nestor leads a translational research group at the Department of Immunology, Genetics and Pathology, Uppsala University, Sweden. She obtained her PhD at Uppsala University in 2006, and was promoted to full Professor in Biomedical Radiation Sciences in 2023.
Her research group focuses on radionuclide targeting and radiosensitization of cancer cells. Her group has created and characterized several novel radioconjugates, one if which is currently pursued towards clinical translation for advanced solid cancers.
Dr Nestor has published more than 50 papers on the subject of biomedical radiation sciences, and holds several patents. She has received several awards and career grants, and is principal investigator on several prestigious research grants. She is co-founder and CEO of Akiram Therapeutics which specializes in molecular radiotherapy. Marika is Chair of the research program Cancer Precision Medicine at the Department of Immunology, Genetics and Pathology, Uppsala University, Sweden, and is also active in various boards and committees in The Swedish Research Council, the Swedish Cancer Society and the Swedish national council for research infrastructures.
Dr. Julie Bolcaen
Tenure track scientist at the Center for
Radiopharmaceutical Sciences, PSI Center for
Life Sciences, Villigen-PSI, Switzerland
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Julie Bolcaen studied biomedical sciences at Ghent University in Belgium and obtained her PhD in Health Sciences at Ghent University in 2017. During her PhD she performed clinical and preclinical research in the field of molecular imaging of brain tumours at the department of nuclear medicine of Ghent University Hospital. Later, she moved to South Africa and worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Radiation Biophysics Division at NRF iThemba LABS in Cape Town. During these 5 years at iThemba LABS, her research projects spanned a broad field of radiobiology, including proton therapy, nuclear medicine, and space radiobiology. She focused on the preclinical investigation of cancer radiosensitizers and radiopharmaceuticals. Since September 2024 she is working in the group of Cristina Müller as a tenure track scientist at the Center for Radiopharmaceutical Sciences at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) in Switzerland. Her research focuses on the validation of new radioligands for cancer targeted radionuclide therapy, investigating exotic radionuclides and their radiobiological effects. She has contributed to 25 peer-reviewed publications, including 12 as a first author and received a young investigator award at the ICRR in 2019. Her research has been funded by Stichting Luka Hemelaere and an NRF seed fund award (Technology Innovation Agency).
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