Treating people with colon cancer faster with the latest therapies. Giving individual patients tailormade treatments. Plus: avoiding unnecessary treatments. This is what brand new professor Jeanine Roodhart is striving for.
Medical oncologist Jeanine Roodhart focuses on colorectal cancer and so-called ‘translational research’: research that directly translates new findings in the laboratory into better care for patients. Since 15 July 2026, she has been appointed UMC Utrecht’s professor of translational medical oncology.
“My ultimate goal is that every patient will receive the treatment that best suits his or her tumor: no more treatment than necessary, while not missing opportunities. We work hard on that together every day.” How exactly is Jeanine hoping to achieve her goal?
What suits which patient best?
Colon cancer is one of the most common forms of cancer in the Netherlands. Many patients have to undergo (a combination of) intensive treatments, such as chemotherapy, immunotherapy or surgery. Not every treatment works equally well for every patient. At the same time, some people receive more treatment than necessary, and are therefore unnecessarily burdened with possible side-effects.
Jeanine wants to change all that. Her research focuses on better understanding tumors and predicting which treatment is best suited to an individual patient.
“My research is aimed at improving the survival rate and quality of life of people with colorectal cancer,” Jeanine explains. “We do this through innovative treatments resulting from translational research. We develop new therapies, improve existing ones and look for tumor characteristics that help to better tailor treatments to the patient.”
“Talking with patients, I realize the most where there is still room for improvement. From that contact, the most important research questions arise.”
From lab to hospital bed
Translational research is the common thread in Jeanine’s work. Researchers in the laboratory work closely with doctors in the consulting room. New insights from research are tested more quickly in patients in clinical trials. At the same time, patient experiences will raise new research questions.
“An important strength of my work is the close connection between patient care and research,” says Jeanine. “What we see in the consulting room, we take back to the laboratory. And we try to translate new insights from the laboratory into better care for patients as quickly as possible.”
Personalized care
Colorectal cancer affects thousands of people in the Netherlands every year. For many patients, the disease has major consequences for their daily lives, work and family. Although treatments have improved greatly in recent years, important challenges remain. Not every patient responds the same to treatment.
Jeanine sees every day how important it is to better tailor treatments to the individual patient. At UMC Utrecht, she treats patients with colorectal cancer, for instance during a specialized consultation hour for complex patients and second opinions. In her consulting room, care, research and innovation come together. This combination motivates her to constantly ask new research questions.
“Talking to patients, I realize the most where there is still room for improvement,” she says. “From that contact, the most important research questions arise.”
Crosspoints of disciplines
In addition to her consultation hours, Jeanine supervises early clinical studies. The latest treatments and insights are tested in a small, carefully selected group of patients.
During these studies, she investigates, for example, which patients benefit from a new therapy, and which people may need less treatment. This is in line with UMC Utrecht’s ambition to make healthcare increasingly personal and goal-oriented.
Jeanine’s chair in translational medical oncology therefore focuses not only on new therapies, but also on preventing overtreatment. This is important for patients and for healthcare as a whole.
According to Jeanine, this requires cooperation between different disciplines. “Successful innovation only happens when biologists, doctors, data scientists and other specialists really work together in a multidisciplinary way,” she clarifies. “It is precisely at the crosspoints of disciplines where new ideas arise.”
Predict with the help of mini-organs
At UMC Utrecht, Jeanine is head of research at the Department of Medical Oncology. An important part of her research involves working with so-called organoids. These are small mini-organs or mini-tumors that are grown in the laboratory from patient material. They can help researchers to better foresee how a tumor will respond to treatment in the future.
“With organoids, we can test treatments on material from real patients,” Jeanine explains. “That helps us to better predict which therapy is promising and which is not.”
UMC Utrecht, the Hubrecht Institute and other partners in Utrecht are among the international forerunners in this field. The development of organoids has changed cancer research worldwide.
In recent years, Jeanine has built up extensive biobanks with organoids from patients with colorectal cancer. These are used to test new drugs, better understand resistance to treatments and determine so-called ‘biomarkers’.
Biomarkers are measurable characteristics that can help predict which treatment will work best. Think, for example, of specific genetic characteristics of tumors or their environment. Perhaps there is a DNA mutation, or do certain proteins behave differently? By cleverly combining these pieces of information, researchers hope to be able to treat patients in a more personalized way.
New medicines thanks to organoids
Jeanine’s research focuses on patients for whom standard treatments do not work sufficiently. Together with researchers from various disciplines, she is looking for new combinations of drugs and ways to break through resistance to therapies.
An example of this is the RASTRIC study, in which a new combination treatment for colorectal cancer is being tested. This therapy was developed on the basis of research with organoids. It involves a mix of three existing drugs that have not previously been used together for colon cancer.
“Unfortunately, when this new combination treatment was first given to patients, it did not work as we had hoped for in most patients. Plus: this experimental treatment also did not work in patients for whom the standard therapies no longer worked,” Jeanine explains.
“Using the tissues and organoids of precisely these patients, we can now study the treatment more precisely in the laboratory. This helps to better understand resistance to the therapy, and to develop new treatments against these desensitized tumors. In this way, the research directly contributes to new treatments for the group of patients who need it the most.”
Innovation thanks to data and AI
In addition, Jeanine is researching how AI and digitalization can help to better analyze tumors. By combining large amounts of data, new possibilities for personalizing treatments arise.
She therefore leads, among other things, the patient cohort platform of Oncode Accelerator, a national initiative that aims to accelerate research into new cancer treatments.
Within the patient cohort platform, patient data, tumor material, organoids and AI are merged to gain new insights faster. By collecting and analyzing data and materials on a large scale, researchers can discover patterns that previously stayed hidden.
“By smartly connecting research, data and patient care, we can accelerate innovation,” Jeanine concludes.
Curiosity and balance
In addition to research and patient care, education plays an important role in Jeanine’s work. She supervises PhD students, doctors in training and students, and she is known for her personal way of supervising.
In 2022, she received the Daily Supervisor of the Year award from Utrecht University’s Graduate School of Life Sciences. According to her, good guidance goes beyond just scientific results.
“I think it’s important to pay attention to the person behind the researcher. Science requires curiosity and ambition, but also room for personal development and balance.”
Translating knowledge into better care
Through the strong connection between laboratory research and clinical practice, UMC Utrecht wants to make new discoveries available to patients more quickly.
This is desperately needed, Jeanine emphasizes. “A lot is happening in cancer research at the moment. New technologies are giving us more and more insight into tumors and treatment response. The challenge is to really translate that knowledge into better care for patients.”
With her chair, she wants to contribute to a future in which treatments for colorectal cancer become increasingly personalized.
“My ambition is to further develop UMC Utrecht into an international center for translational colorectal cancer research. Through national and international cooperation, new treatments will ultimately reach our patients more quickly.”
Jeanine in short
Jeanine (1983) studied medicine and obtained her PhD at UMC Utrecht/Utrecht University.
She was then trained as a medical oncologist at UMC Utrecht and St. Antonius Hospital.
Since 2018, she has been working as an medical oncologist and researcher at UMC Utrecht.
In 2022, Jeanine became associate professor at UMC Utrecht.
As of 15 July 2026, Jeanine has been appointed professor of translational medical oncology.
Jeanine lives in Bussum with her husband Reinier and 2 sons (9 and 12).
Why did you choose medical oncology?
“I can combine the personal guidance of patients with the underlying biology of cancer. For example, I want to understand how tumors and metastases develop, why treatments do or do not work, how the tumors relate to healthy cells, and how they make the immune system work for them. But I also get to guide people for a long time. I really get to know patients and can mean a lot to them. Together with the patients, I look at what is best for them at that moment and what fits in with their personal circumstances and wishes as well as the biology of the disease. As a medical oncologist, you get very close to people.”
