"Indisulam – has anyone ever heard of this medication? About fifteen years ago, researchers concluded that it had little promise. That’s exactly the type of abandoned drug we investigate in René Bernards' lab. At the time, a small percentage of patients responded well. If you can find out who they were and how it worked, you may have 'discovered' a new drug that is also very cheap because the patent has already expired. Using cells and mouse models, I found two combination therapies that may work for humans. These still require a lot of research, though. I also described genes that play a role in therapy resistance. The great thing about research is that you can find many new international friends. I worked on this project together with Rodrigo, a Portuguese postdoc. Our discussions helped both of us move forward. I'm pretty direct for a Slovenian, which was quite helpful here in the Netherlands. I even got used to cheese sandwiches for lunch."
Ziva will defend her thesis on November 15.
prof. dr. R. Bernards
dr. R. de Oliveira