Wouter R.L. Hendrickx, PhD

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. In this effort he was awarded with IRF2019, IRF2022 and PPM5.

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.

Apryl Sanchez

Jessica Roelands