Wouter R.L. Hendrickx, PhD

Principal Investigator – Associate Level Tumor Biology and Immunology Laboratory

Email: whendrickx (@) sidra.org

Biography

Dr. Wouter Hendrickx is an investigator in Population Genomic Medicine Division of the Research Branch and member of the Cancer Program at Sidra Medicine. He Leads the Tumor Biology and Immunology Laboratory and has experience in stem cell and cancer research at the universities of Brussels (VUB), Leuven (KUL) and Norwich (UEA). Where he gained an MSc in biomedical Science (2004) and an MSc Bio-informatics (2005) and a PhD in Medical Science respectively (2012). He has worked on several different projects relating to the tumor micro environment including extensive work on the role of MMP’s and the degradome. He has experience with classic molecular biology techniques as well as advanced 3D cell culture and proteomics technology. At Sidra Medicine he has focused since 2014 on the tumor immune micro environment deploying bio-informatic tools to analyze tumors for immune related signatures and other determinants of the immune phenotype and translating the findings to the wet lab environment. He was a participant of the EU FP6 and PF7 grant framework and is a 2015 QNRF JSREP awardee. Since 2019 he leads Sidra Medicine’s efforts in establishing its Pediatric Precision Oncology Initiative which aims to provide NGS based molecular guided therapy recommendations to each child fighting cancer in Qatar. Next to paediatric cancer Dr. Hendrickx works on the interplay between host, cancer and microbiome. In this effort he was awarded with IRF2019, IRF2022, PPM5 and ARG1.
Our Research and Approach

We investigate the immunogenetic profile of colon cancer patients as Part of a JSREP funded grant. This is the first study of its kind in Qatar that enabled us to establish a Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) cancer cohort locally. This project involves RNA sequencing, whole exome sequencing as well as T cell receptor profiling of 360 colon cancer patients. The sequencing is conducted by the Sidra Genomics core facility and the bioinformatics pipeline was developed with collaboration from the Bioinformatics division. Immune phenotyping and the determination of genetic determinants of these phenotypes is performed in line with our previous research using the TCGA breast and colon cancer cohorts. The output of this new colon cancer immune genetic project will not only expand our current understanding of the tumor immune environment but will also provide us some insight on its role in the diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of cancer patients. The technological developments in this project will pave the way for NGS-based cancer research and treatment in Qatar. The project also supports education, training and capacity building in Qatar and involves an international PhD student from LUMC. This project will serve as the foundation in our efforts to bring NGS capabilities to our pediatric cancer research.

In addition, we are involved in several international collaborations focusing on the therapeutic manipulation of the tumor immune microenvironment and the genomic determinations of these interventions. Following up on the genetic profiling of cancer samples, our wet lab research extends to functional omics to unravel the mechanistic basis of the NGS findings. For this purpose, we employ various methodologies, including 3D in vitro modeling and single cell analyses.
Lab Members

Apryl Sanchez
Lab Specialist – Lab Manager

Email: asanchez @ sidra.org

ORCID

Publons

Ayesha Jabeen

Lab Specialist

Email: ajabeen1 @ sidra.org

ORCID

Publons

Christophe Raynaud

Staff Scientist

Email: craynaud @ sidra.org

ORCID

Publons

Eiman Ahmed

Lab Specialist - Bioinformatics

Email: eahmed2 @ sidra.org

ORCID

Publons

Shima Sherif

Postdoctoral fellow - Bioinformatics

Email: ssherifkhedr @ sidra.org

ORCID

Web of Science
Alumni

Jessica Roelands
PhD Candidate

Affiliated with LUMC (Netherlands)

ORCID: 0000-0003-3631-2041

Publons: https://publons.com/researcher/1519038/jessica-roelands/

Moved on to a post-doc position in Netherlands

Blessing Dason

Research Coordinator

ORCID: 0000-0001-5216-5120

Moved on to a Research Nurse position in Sidra Medicine

Zeinab Saed

Intern

Email: zsaed-extern @ sidra.org

ORCID

Publons

Dina Nehad Awartani

Lab assistant

Email: dawartani @ sidra.org

ORCID

Publons

Tariq Masoodi

Staff Scientist - Bioinformatics

Email: tmasoodi @ sidra.org

ORCID

Web of Science

Maher Habboub

Lab assistant – Bioinformatics

Email: mhabbob-extern @ sidra.org

ORCID

Web of Science

Sathyavathi Sundararaju

Postdoctoral fellow

Email: ssundarar1 @ sidra.org

ORCID

Web of Science

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS:

Location matters: spatial dynamics of tumor-infiltrating T cell subsets is prognostic in colon cancer [Contributing author]
Hehuan Zhu, Jessica Roelands, Eiman I Ahmed, Imke Stouten, Rachel Hoorntje, Ronald LP van Vlierberghe, Marieke E Ijsselsteijn, Xin Lei, Noel FCC de Miranda, Rob AEM Tollenaar, Alexander L Vahrmeijer, Davide Bedognetti, Wouter RL Hendrickx, Peter JK Kuppen
Frontiers in Immunology, 2024
DOI: 10.3389/fimmu.2024.1293618
An integrated tumor, immune and microbiome atlas of colon cancer [co-senior author]
Jessica Roelands, Peter J. K. Kuppen, Eiman I. Ahmed, Raghvendra Mall, Tariq Masoodi, Parul Singh, Gianni Monaco, Christophe Raynaud, Noel F.C.C. de Miranda, Luigi Ferraro, Tatiana C. Carneiro-Lobo, Najeeb Syed, Arun Rawat, Amany Awad, Julie Decock, William Mifsud, Lance D. Miller, Shimaa Sherif, Mahmoud G. Mohamed, Darawan Rinchai, Marc Van den Eynde, Rosalyn W. Sayaman, Elad Ziv, Francois Bertucci, Mahir Abdulla Petkar, Stephan Lorenz, Lisa Sara Mathew, Kun Wang, Selvasankar Murugesan, Damien Chaussabel, Alexander L. Vahrmeijer, Ena Wang, Anna Ceccarelli, Khalid A. Fakhro, Gabriele Zoppoli, Alberto Ballestrero, Rob A.E.M. Tollenaar, Francesco M. Marincola, Jérôme Galon, Souhaila Al Khodor, Michele Ceccarelli, Wouter Hendrickx & Davide Bedognetti.
Nature Medicine, 2023
DOI: 10.1038/s41591-023-02324-5
The immune landscape of solid pediatric tumors [senior author]
Shimaa Sherif, Jessica Roelands, William Mifsud, Eiman I. Ahmed, Christophe M. Raynaud, Darawan Rinchai, Abbirami Sathappan, Ata Maaz, Ayman Saleh, Erdener Ozer, Khalid A. Fakhro, Borbala Mifsud, Vésteinn Thorsson, Davide Bedognetti & Wouter R. L. Hendrickx
Journal of Experimental & Clinical Cancer Research, 2022
DOI: 10.1186/s13046-022-02397-z
Immune-related 3-lncRNA signature with prognostic connotation in a multi-cancer setting. [co-senior author]
Sherif S, Mall R, Almeer H, Naik A, Al Homaid A, Thomas R, Roelands J, Narayanan S, Mohamed MG, Bedri S, Al-Bader SB, Junejo K, Bedognetti D, Hendrickx W, Decock J
Journal of Translational Medicine, 2022
10.1186/s12967-022-03654-7
Ancestry-Associated Transcriptomic Profiles of Breast Cancer in Patients of African, Arab, and European Ancestry. [co-senior author]
Roelands, Jessica, Raghvendra Mall, Hossam Almeer, Remy Thomas, Mahmoud G. Mohamed, Shahinaz Bedri, Salha Bujassoum Al-Bader, Kulsoom Junejo, Elad Ziv, Rosalyn W. Sayaman, Peter J. K. Kuppen, Davide Bedognetti, Wouter Hendrickx and Julie Decock
NPJ Breast Cancer, 2021
DOI:10.1038/s41523-021-00215-x.
A comprehensive publication list is found on ORICD (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7649-5092)

Wouter R.L. Hendrickx, PhD

Principal Investigator – Associate Level Tumor Biology and Immunology Laboratory

Biography

Our Research and Approach

Lab Members

Alumni