Ground breaking stem-cell researcher Hans Clevers

How does your work help to shape the world of tomorrow?

At the Hubrecht Institute, I lead a group of forty researchers who are studying stem cells and cancer. In my job as research director at the Princess Maxima Centre, I am currently attempting to set up a research institute in accordance with the Hubrecht Institute’s model: a single layer of ‘principle investigators’ (PIs), each of which will independently manage a research group. We are looking for a good mix of fundamental and clinical groups. The PMC is a hospital of oncology, and all of the research conducted there must be directly related to paediatric cancer. The research is conducted at the PMC itself.

What does your work contribute to society? How does it impact me?

By conducting many years of basic research, we have discovered a large number of stem cells in mammals (mice and humans) within a short time. We have learned that the behaviour of these stem cells is very different to what we generally believed. We can now obtain stem cells from organs and cultivate them outside the body. We then use them to test medicines – we call this ‘personalised medicine’. We do this in close collaboration with the Wilhelmina Paediatric Hospital and UMC Utrecht. In the long term, we will be able to use the stem cells to treat organs. For example, if patients have a genetic condition, we can take the faulty stem cell out of the body, ‘repair’ it and put it back again. Technically, this is already possible.

Currently, the cultivation of stem cells from patients for research into medicines has grown hugely, and research is being conducted into genetic conditions such as cystic fibrosis as well as a huge range of cancers. We also use stem cells to study viruses, for example, on cultivated lung cells. One benefit of this technique is it removes the need for laboratory animals.

Recently at the Princess Maxima Centre, a postdoc from my lab named Jarno Drost set up his own research group to study kidney tumours that are difficult to diagnose. He can cultivate kidney tumour cells from the patients’ urine. In this way, he hopes to determine – outside the body – what type of tumour it is and what medication will be most effective. This is much less unpleasant for patients, as it removes the need for surgery or needles.

What is your dream? What do you want to achieve in the next 5–10 years?

Cancer is a many-headed beast. My dream is that diagnostic applications of our mini-organ technology outside the patient’s body will become the standard. At a further point in the future, I hope that one day, healthy stem-cell banks (freezing chambers containing hundreds of cultivated stem-cell samples) will be brought into existence, allowing patients to obtain and use stem cells upon request as a replacement for organ transplantation

Lees ook het interview van de Volkskrant met Hans Clevers: Stamcelbioloog Clevers is bezig met het kweken van een minilong: ‘Die miniluchtpijp ziet er prachtig uit. Je ziet het slijm ronddraaien’

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