Phd-student Emma Boerrigter
Curriculum Vitae
After obtaining a bachelor’s degree in Life Science and Technology at TU Delft and Leiden University, I studied Bioscience Engineering: Genetic and Cellular Engineering at KU Leuven. During my master’s thesis, I studied ribosomal protein defects in cancer. In April 2024, I joined the lab of Peter ten Dijke as a PhD student, where I am investigating tumor-derived extracellular vesicles in blood plasma from cancer patients.
Research
Extracellular vesicles (EVs) carry biomolecules reflective of their cellular origin. Tumor-derived EVs (tdEVs) hold a large potential for advancing cancer detection and monitoring, as well as enhancing our understanding of tumor biology and the dynamics of the tumor microenvironment. To selectively detect and isolate tdEVs – which are often rare in plasma among the abundant EVs from healthy cells – we target a malignancy-associated glycosylation on the tdEV surface. By employing microscopy and flow cytometry methods, we measure tdEV concentrations in plasma from cancer patients. Our ultimate goal is to develop tdEV-based methods for early, minimally invasive cancer detection. Additionally, we aim to analyze the biomolecular content of tdEVs to further uncover their role in critical processes such as metastasis.
