Anna Enneking
Research:
Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is predicted to become the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths, primarily due to its poor prognosis and limited treatment options. Cancer cells heavily depend on altered metabolism to maintain their nutritional requirements in often nutrient-poor environments. For this they rely in part on the uptake and degradation of extracellular (endocytic) and cytoplasmic (autophagic) materials by the endo-lysosomal system. Understanding how PDAC cells modify their endo-lysosomal system to gain metabolic advantages is likely to reveal novel targets for combating PDAC. My PhD aims to characterize the endo-lysosomal adaptations associated with PDAC from morphological and functional perspectives and explore potential remodeling of endo-lysosomal interactions with other organelles, such as the endoplasmic reticulum (ER).
Curriculum Vitae:
I completed my bachelor’s degree in Molecular Life Sciences and continued with a master’s degree in Molecular and Cellular Life Sciences, both at Utrecht University. I started my master’s with an internship at the Klumperman lab at the UMC Utrecht, where I studied trafficking pathways of lysosomal membrane proteins. To finish my master’s, I moved to Melbourne (Australia) to join the Edgington-Mitchell lab at the Bio21 Molecular Science & Biotechnology institute working on uncovering nuclear roles of canonically lysosomal proteases. In January 2026 I joined the Neefjes lab as a PhD candidate.
