Degrees

PhD     Molecular Oncology (University of Amsterdam)

MSc     Oncology (Vrije Universiteit of Amsterdam)

BSc     Biomedical Sciences (University of Amsterdam)

Research interests

My research focuses on the earliest molecular events that drive intestinal tumour initiation. More specifically, I study the competition between normal and mutant cells from the first moment they arise in the epithelium of the gut. My team and I discovered a completely new mechanism in the mammalian intestine, supercompetition, by which mutant cells actively disadvantage their normal neighbours and initiate tumour development. Moreover, we demonstrated that this unequal competition can be counteracted using lithium, thereby preventing the development of premalignant adenomas. These findings have been translated into a clinical pilot trial that started in May 2022 and assesses the chemoprevention effect of lithium in patients with Familial Adenomatous Polyposis, a hereditary colorectal cancer syndrome.

Prizes

Cancer Center Amsterdam - Best Preclinical Thesis (2023)

L’Oréal-UNESCO Women in Science - Rising Talent Award (2022)

International Birnstiel Award (2021)

Awards

NWO Rubicon Fellowship (2022)

EMBO Postdoctoral Fellowship (2022)

Publications

van Driel, M.S., Linssen, J.D.G., Nijman, L.E., de Groot, N.E., Koster, J., Elbers, C.C., Vermeulen, L.*, & van Neerven, S.M.* Caffeine limits expansion of Apc-deficient clones in the intestine by NOTUM inhibition (2023) Cellular and Molecular Gastroenterology and Hepatology (corresponding author)

van Neerven, S.M.*, Smit, W.L.*, van Driel, M.S., de Groot, N.E., Nijman, L.E., Elbers, C.C., Léveillé, N., Heijmans, J., & Vermeulen, L. Intestinal Apc inactivation induces HSP25 dependency (2022) EMBO Molecular Medicine (corresponding author)

van Neerven, S.M. & Vermeulen L. Cell competition in development, homeostasis and cancer (2022) Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology

Linssen, J.D.G., van Neerven, S.M., Aelvoet, A.S., Elbers, C.C., Vermeulen, L., & Dekker, E. The CHAMP-study: the CHemopreventive effect of lithium in familial AdenoMatous Polyposis; study protocol of a phase II trial (2022) BMC Gastroenterology

Ramadan, R.*, van Driel, M.S.*, Vermeulen, L., & van Neerven, S.M. Intestinal stem cell dynamics in health and disease (2022) Trends in Cancer (corresponding author)

Ramadan, R., Wouters, V.M., van Neerven, S.M.,  Martins Garcia, T., Muncan, V., Franklin, O.D., Battle, M., Carlson, K.S., Leach, J., Sansom, O.J., Vermeulen, L., Medema, J.P., & Huels, D.J. The extracellular matrix controls stem cell specification and tissue morphology in the developing and adult mouse gut (2022) Biology Open

Komen, J., van Neerven, S.M., Bossink, E.G.B.M., de Groot, N.E., Nijman, L.E., van den Berg, A., Vermeulen, L., & van der Meer, A.D. The effect of Dynamic, in vivo-like oxaliplatin on HCT116 spheroids in a cancer-on-chip model is representative of the response in xenografts (2022) Micromachines

van Neerven, S.M., de Groot, N.E., Nijman, L.E., Scicluna, B.P., van Driel, M.S., Lecca, M.C., Warmerdam, D.O., Kakkar, V., Ferreira Moreno, L., Vieira Braga, F.A., Sanches, D.R., Ramesh, P., ten Hoorn, S., Aelvoet, A.S., van Boxel, M.F., Koens, L., Koster, J., Dekker, E., Medema, J.P., Winton, D.J., Bijlsma, M.F., Morrissey, E., Léveillé, N., & Vermeulen, L. Apc-mutant cells act as supercompetitors in intestinal tumour initiation (2021) Nature

van Neerven, S.M., Ramadan, R., Van Driel, M.S., Huels, D.J., & Vermeulen L. Intestinal organoid co-culture methods to study cell competition in vitro (2021) STAR protocols (corresponding author)

Bootsma, S.J.*, van Neerven, S.M.*, & Vermeulen, L. Exploiting KRAS-mediated metabolic reprogramming as therapeutic target (2021) Nature Genetics

Van Driel, M.S., van Neerven, S.M., & Vermeulen L. High-fat diet impacts tumor development in the gut (2021) Trends in Cancer

Lodestijn, S.C., van den Bosch, T., Nijman, L.E., Moreno, L.F., Schlingemann, S., Sheraton, V.M., van Neerven, S.M., Koning, J.J., Vieira Braga, F.A., Paauw, N.J., Lecca, M.C., Lenos, K.J., Morrissey, E., Miedema, D.M., Winton, D.J., Bijlsma, M.F., & Vermeulen, L. Continuous clonal labeling reveals uniform progenitor potential in the adult exocrine pancreas (2021) Cell Stem Cell

Lodestijn. S.C., van Neerven, S.M., Vermeulen L., & Bijlsma, M.F. Stem cells in the exocrine pancreas using homeostasis, injury and cancer (2021) Cancers

Komen, J., van Neerven, S.M., van den Berg, A., Vermeulen, L., & van der Meer, A.D. Mimicking and surpassing the xenograft model with cancer-on-chip technology (2021) EBioMedicine

Adam, R.S., van Neerven, S.M., Pleguezuelos-Manzano, C., Simmini, S., Léveillé, N., de Groot, N.E., Holding, A.N., Markowetz, F., & Vermeulen, L. Intestinal region-specific Wnt signalling profiles reveal interrelation between cell identity and oncogenic pathway activity in cancer development (2020) Cancer Cell International

van Neerven, S.M., & Vermeulen, L. The interplay between intrinsic and extrinsic Wnt signalling in controlling intestinal transformation (2019) Differentiation

Vleugels, J.L.A.*, van Neerven, S.M.*, van Leerdam, M.E., Wanders, L.K., de Wit, M., Carvalho, B., Delis-van Diemen, P.M., Kallenberg, F.G.J., Vermeulen, L., Beliën, J.A., East, J.E., Meijer, G.A., & Dekker, E. CD31-positive microvessel density within adenomas of Lynch Syndrome patients is similar compared to adenomas of non-Lynch patients (2019) Endoscopy International Open

van der Heijden, M., Miedema, D.M., Waclaw, B., Veenstra, V.L., Lecca, M.C., Nijman, L.E., van Dijk, E., van Neerven, S.M., Lodestijn, S.C., Lenos, K.J., de Groot, N.E., Prasetyanti, P.R., Arricibita Varea, A., Winton, D.J., Medema, J.P., Morrissey, E., Ylstra, B., Nowak, M.A., Bijlsma, M.F., & Vermeulen, L. Spatiotemporal regulation of clonogenicity in colorectal cancer xenografts (2019) PNAS

Lenos, K.J., Miedema, D.M., Lodestijn, S.C. Nijman, L.E., van den Bosch, T., Romero Ros, X., Lourenço, F.C., Lecca, M.C., van der Heijden, M., van Neerven, S.M., van Oort, A., Leveille, N., Adam, R.S., de Sousa E Melo, F., Otten, J., Veerman, P., Hypolite, G., Koens, L., Lyons, S.K., Stassi, G., Winton, D.J., Medema, J.P., Morrissey, E., Bijlsma, M.F., & Vermeulen, L. Stem cell functionality is microenvironmentally defined during tumour expansion and therapy response in colon cancer (2018) Nature Cell Biology

van Neerven, S.M., & Vermeulen, L. Balancing signals in the intestinal niche (2017) The EMBO Journal

van Neerven, S.M., Tieken, M., Vermeulen, L., & Bijlsma, M.F. Bidirectional interconversion of stem and non-stem cancer cell populations: A reassessment of theoretical models for tumor heterogeneity (2016) Molecular & Cellular Oncology

Other interests

Entomology