Floris Foijer was awarded a Dutch Cancer Society/KWF grant

‘In 80% of all cancers, cancer cells have an abnormal number of chromosomes, a state called aneuploidy. Aneuploidy discriminates cancer cells from non-cancer cells, thus making it an attractive target for cancer therapy. However, aneuploidy itself decreases the proliferation potential of healthy cells, suggesting that aneuploid cells need to adjust their biology to deal with the downsides of aneuploidy. In this KWF-funded project, we will follow up on our recent finding that aneuploid cancers hide from  the immune system. We will investigate in depth how exactly aneuploid cancer cells duck immune surveillance and which immune cell types are involved. This project will be performed in collaboration with UMCG colleagues Bert van der Vegt, Marco de Bruyn and Marcel van Vugt and with help of the labs of Karin the Visser at the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam and Samuel Bakhoum at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York.’

More information can be found here (in Dutch)

https://www.umcg.nl/s/kwf-subsidie-voor-3-umcg-onderzoeken and here (in English):https://umcgresearch.org/w/3-umcg-studies-receive-grant-from-kwf

Abnormalities in mitosis (left image) will lead to cells with abnormal numbers of chromosomes (right image). In the left panel you see in blue chromosomes being segregated with one chromosome lagging behind. In the right panel, you see dots  that represent chromosome specific probes, with each color staining a different chromosome. Normal cels have two copies of each chromosome, i.e. 2 dots in one colour (bottom cell). The two other cells have more than 2 dots in a single color (three red dots in top cell and three green dots in middle cell), indicating aneuploidy in these cells.