J.L. Boormans, MD PhD

I am Urologist, senior staff member and associate professor at the Erasmus MC Cancer Institute.

My research focus is urothelial cancer. I am involved in a variety of ongoing clinical and translational studies. I supervise 4 PhD students and 1 PostDoc in the field of clinical and translational research in GU cancers.

My expertise is pelvic and retroperitoneal malignancies. My research focus is urothelial cancer. I perform both robotic and open surgery.

I am currently involved in a variety of ongoing translational clinical studies in urothelial cancer. I am a board member of the Dutch Uro Oncology Study Group (www.stichtingduos.nl) which is a collaborative network of 25 hospitals in the Netherlands and board member of the Dutch Bladder Cancer Infrastructure.

I recieved my medical degree at the University of Utrecht and obtained the US medical licensing step I and II in 2001. I specialized in Urology (2004 - 2009). After obtaining my PhD in 2011 I joined the staf of urology at Erasmus MC.

I continued my career at the Erasmus MC Cancer Institute, formerly known as the Daniel den Hoed Cancer Center. In 2019, I was appointed an associate professorship in oncological urology.

Previous studies in the lab have shown that autologous dendritic cells pulsed with allogenic tumor cell lysate was able to induce peripheral T cell activation and tumor-reactive T cell responses in patients with mesothelioma and pancreatic cancer. Current research focuses on how to initiate an effective immune response in the tumor as well as the tumor-draining lymph node using dendritic cell vaccination. Furthermore, we are studying novel approaches for (personalized) vaccination. In addition, we have identified T cell characteristics that underlie clinical efficacy of immune check inhibitors or chemotherapeutic agents in mesothelioma. The selected publications below give an impression of our work. 

On a yearly basis I give lectures to medical students, residents-in-training and nursing staff.

• Board member of DUOS
• Board member of Erasmus MC Cancer Institute
• Board member of ProBCi

Period (from – to)	Funding source and project code	Own share of grant (€)	Total grant (€)	Project title	Role of PI*
2013-2017	Mrace grant, 103824	150,000.-	150,000.-	Identification of muscle-invasive bladder cancer patients who will not benefit from neoadjuvant chemotherapy using circulating tumor cells	Principal investigator
2017-2020	KWF, 10319	440,000.-	440,000.-	REduce BlAdder CAncer REcurrences after Nephro-Ureterectomy	Principal investigator
2018-2019	DUOS	15,000.-	15,000.-	The clonal relation of upper tract urothelial carcinoma and paired urothelial carcinoma of the bladder	Principal investigator
2019-2022	ERA-NET, JTC-2017-8349	320,000.-	960,000.-	MOLecular ChARacterization of Upper Tract Urothelial Carcinoma	Principal investigator, leader of the consortium
2019-2022	ZonMW, 80-84300-98-18572		401,000.-	Comparative effectiveness of bladder sparing treatment versus radical surgery	Co-PI
2019-2020	DUOS	5,000.-	5,000.-	Pathology revision of metastatic lesions of urothelial carcinoma in addition to WGS	Principal investigator
2020 - 2023	KWF, 12432	110,000.-	448,322.-	The accuracy of detecting residual disease following neo-adjuvant chemotherapy in patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer	Co-PI

My research focusses on risk stratification and precision medicine of urothelial carcinoma.

I am leading a multicentre study (CirGuidance study) on circulating tumour cells to guide neoadjuvant chemotherapy in bladder cancer patients. I am supervising a PhD student who is developing gene expression profiles of this patient cohort (N=320) together with a diagnostic company in order to improve risk stratification of bladder cancer patients. I am also supervising a PhD student as part of another multicentre study on the efficacy of a preoperative intravesical instillation before radical nephro-ureterectomy in patients with upper tract urothelial carcinoma (REBACARE study), of which I am the lead investigator.

Furthermore, I am leading a European consortium for the molecular characterization of upper tract urothelial carcinoma (MOLCARUTUC consortium), as well as national collaboration on whole genome and transcriptome sequencing data of 100+ urothelial carcinoma metastases together with Hartwig Medical Foundation. In collaboration with the department of Medical Oncology, I am co-supervising a PhD student who runs a biomarker discover study to predict response to pembrolizumab (RESPONDER study).

Lastly, I am co-PI of the Pre-Prevencys study (granted by KWF) to conduct a prospective trial on clinical response prediction to neoadjuvant chemotherapy in patients undergoing radical cystectomy.