Dr Joep Grootjans is a gastroenterologist and group leader within the Tytgat Institute & the Amsterdam UMC, Department of Gastroenterology & Hepatology in Amsterdam.
Joep Grootjans obtained his medical degree and PhD at the University of Maastricht, after which he started his residency in Gastroenterology & Hepatology at the Amsterdam Medical Center (AMC) in Amsterdam. He interrupted his clinical training for a three-year postdoc (2014-2017) in the laboratory of Richard S. Blumberg at Harvard Medical school (Boston, USA) where he discovered the complexity and immunosuppressive role of peritoneal immune cells in mice (Science 2019). Joep Grootjans now works as a gastroenterologist at the Amsterdam UMC and inflammatory bowel diseases. He leads a research group at the Tytgat Institute focusing on the role of inflammation and immunity in cancer development/progression. He is supported by several personal grants, including a VENI (NWO/ZonMw), a Young Investigator Grant (KWF), and a TKI-PPP grant (IXA Amsterdam), amongst others. In 2021 he was awarded the UEG Rising Star award.

Hina Naz Khan studied Bioinformatics in Pakistan and then moved to the Netherlands. She received her master’s bioinformatics degree in 2015 from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. In August 2015, she started her PhD at the Center of Experimental and Molecular Medicine and Department of Neurology (Amsterdam UMC Locatie AMC) under the supervision of Prof. Dr T. van der Poll, Prof. Dr A.H. Zwinderman and Dr B.P. Scicluna, where she focused on the systems biology of the host response to severe infection (meningitis and sepsis). After obtaining her PhD, she worked as a post-doctorate researcher in Bioinformatics at the molecular genetics department of Erasmus MC. She performed next-generation sequencing (NGS) analysis for a variety of projects that address various aspects of the DNA damage response at the molecular, cellular, and physiological levels. In 2023, she started her Postdoc at the Tytgat Institute for Liver and Intestinal Research under the supervision of Dr Joep Grootjans. Using her bioinformatics skills, she mainly focuses on mapping the tumor immune environment in colorectal- and gastric cancer metastases using single-cell RNA-sequencing and innovative spatial profiling techniques.

Maaike de Jong obtained her bachelor’s degree in Bio-Pharmaceutical Sciences and master’s degree in Biomedical Sciences at Leiden University. In 2019, she started her PhD at the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research (LACDR) under the supervision of Bram Slütter and Johan Kuiper, where she studied the role of CD8+ T-cells in atherosclerosis. After completing her PhD, she joined the Grootjans lab in 2025 as a postdoctoral researcher, where she investigates the tumor immune environment in colorectal and gastric cancer metastases at the single-cell level, aiming to identify novel therapeutic targets for immunotherapy.

Job Saris graduated from medical school in 2018, after which he joined the Grootjans lab, having been awarded the AMC PhD Scholarship. He mainly focuses on characterizing the human peritoneal immune system in health and disease. He is particularly interested in finding new therapeutic targets for immunotherapy in patients suffering from peritoneal metastasized colorectal or gastric cancer. In close collaboration with colleagues of the Vermeulen lab, he also investigates the immune response in the setting of colorectal cancer using humanized immune system mice models.

Sofía was born in Montevideo, Uruguay. After finishing her Bachelor’s in Biochemistry, she did a Master’s in Immunology in the Immunobiology Department at the University of the Republic in Montevideo, Uruguay. She also worked in this same department as a teaching assistant from 2016 to 2020. In 2020, she moved to Amsterdam and joined the Grootjans Lab as a PhD candidate. Her research focuses on understanding how immune cell adaptation in the setting of chronic inflammation contributes to the development of colorectal cancer.

Dalia Lartey studied Medicine at the University Medical Center in Utrecht (UMCU) and graduated in 2021. Her interest in research remained after obtaining her bachelor’s degree in Biomedical sciences at VU Amsterdam in 2017. In 2021, she started her PhD project at the Tytgat Institute for Liver and Intestinal Research under the supervision of Joep Grootjans, Mark Löwenberg and Manon Wildenberg. Here, she focuses on finding biomarkers for Intestinal fibrosis and dysplasia in Inflammatory bowel disease patients (IBD) and predictors of Immune-mediated colitis (IMC) in patients undergoing immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) treatment.

Kelly completed her master’s degree in Biomedical Sciences with a specialization in Infection and Immunity at the University of Amsterdam in 2023. In the same year, she started her PhD at the Tytgat Institute under the guidance of Dr Joep Grootjans and Dr Mark Löwenberg. Her primary research focus is on discovering biomarkers for intestinal fibrosis and predictive biomarkers for dysplasia in individuals with Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) and to identify predictors of immune-mediated colitis (IMC) in patients undergoing treatment with immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI).

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Dimitrios was born in Ioannina, Greece. He received an integrated bachelor and Master’s degree in Pharmacy (Honors) from the Department of Pharmacy of the university of Patras in Greece. Dimitrios, continued his MSc degree studies in Molecular Biomedicine and Bioinnovation (Honors) at the National and Kapodistrian university of Athens, focusing on the field of autoimmune diseases, with emphasis on systemic lupus erythematosus. Currently Dimitrios is conducting his PhD studies in the framework of the ARCAID consortium and through his research, aims to identify novel treatment options that can restore the dysregulated immune responses behind Inflammatory bowel disease and rheumatoid arthritis.

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Nina Mezgec Mrzlikar completed a bachelor’s program in biotechnology at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia. In 2021 she started her master at Uppsala University, Sweden. She did her master thesis at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden, on the topic of tumor-associated macrophages. In 2024 she moved to Amsterdam and started her PhD focusing on studying how immune cells drive resistance to therapy in peritoneal metastasized colorectal cancer. 

Rose Leijdesdorff studied medicine at the University of Groningen. After writing her master thesis on the role of the microbiome in familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP), her interest in the subject remained. In 2023 she joined the group of Prof. Dekker at the Amsterdam UMC under joined supervision of Prof. Weersma (University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG)) and Dr. Grootjans. Her research focusses on the role of the immune system and the gut microbiome in initiation and progression of colorectal cancer in hereditary cancer and polyposis syndromes.

Fabienne Verburg completed her Master’s degree in Oncology at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and graduated in 2022. Following her graduation, she worked as a technician at UMC Utrecht specializing in immune inhibitory receptors in the context of inflammation and cancer, and also completed a year-long internship at a biotech company in San Francisco, where she contributed to the development of an allogeneic CAR T cell therapy. In March 2025, she started her PhD in the Grootjans lab, researching tumor-immune interactions in peritoneal metastasized cancer. Her work aims to understand how immune-related factors contribute to poor prognosis and therapy resistance, while exploring new immunomodulatory treatment options for patients with peritoneal metastasis. For her research, she utilizes advanced single-cell technologies and spatial omics to gain deeper insights into tumor-immune interactions. 

Stephanie obtained her Bachelor’s degree in Life Sciences at the HU University of Applied Sciences Utrecht. She joined the Grootjans Lab as a research technician in February 2024.

Jan obtained his bachelor’s degree in Technical Medicine and his master’s in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Twente. After a year of working as a research technician at the Microscopy and Cytometry Core Facility at the Amsterdam UMC, he started a PhD project focused on the application of mass cytometry. The main research lines focused on immunophenotyping of peripheral blood samples of both intracranial and pancreatic cancer under the supervision of Dr Juan Garcia-Vallejo. In 2021 he joined the Tytgat Institute and became a part of the group of Prof. Wouter de Jonge and Joep Grootjans. Jan’s main focus in research is to define the tumor immune environment in cancer and cellular interactions at the site of inflammation of IBD, amongst others using spatial profiling techniques such as imaging mass cytometry.