Patrick Derksen

Patrick Derksen (1970) obtained his PhD at the department of Pathology, Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Following his graduation in 2003, he moved to the Netherlands Cancer Institute to study the consequences inactivation of cell-cell adhesion in breast cancer development and progression. Here he developed two mouse models for human invasive lobular carcinoma (ILC), by conditional and mammary-specific knockout of E-cadherin and p53. In 2005 he was awarded an independent researcher grant from the Dutch organization for scientific research (NWO-VENI) in 2005. In 2007, he joined the Medical Oncology department as an independent researcher and head of the UMCU Mouse Cancer Clinic. He received a NWO-VIDI award in 2008. In 2010 his position was tenured as an Associate Professor at the Department of Pathology.

His group is aiming at combining expertise on adhesion molecules, cell signaling and clinically relevant mouse models to study the downstream effectors of the adherens junction complex that propel breast cancer development and progression.

Research in the Derksen laboratory is currently sponsored by grants from NWO, KWF, H2020, STW and Breast Cancer Now.