283 Curriculum vitae Curriculum vitae Maria Jantine (Martine) De Herdt was born on the 27th of February 1981 in Naarden (NL). As the daughter of a Dutch mother and a Belgian father, she moved to the proximity of Ghent (B) at the age of six. Here, she attended secondary school at ‘Koninklijk Atheneum III Voskenslaan’. Having Latin and Mathematics as her main subjects, she obtained her diploma in 1999. That same year, she started – as part of the first cohort – with the program ‘Life Science & Technology’ offered at ‘Delft University of Technology’ and ‘Leiden University’. In 2002, she obtained her BSc. In 2006, her MSc (cum laude) with a focus on the subjects ‘Cells as Factories’ and ‘Functional Genomics’. During her Master’s internship at the department of pathology of the Leiden University Medical Center, she had the opportunity to contribute to the identification of gene expression profiles that are associated with regional lymph node metastases of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. During this project, she met Prof. Robert Jan Baatenburg de Jong. After his appointment as chairman of the department of otorhinolaryngology and head and neck surgery of the Erasmus MC in 2005, he offered her the opportunity to be part of the start of the current Rotterdam head and neck oncology line of research. Under his guidance, she started as an inexperienced researcher at the Erasmus MC in 2007, with the ambition to write a dissertation. From this unique position, she was given the time and opportunity to delve into the field of translational oncology. She learned the importance of data collection and prognostic models from her first promotor (Prof. Robert Jan Baatenburg de Jong), the challenge of performing molecular techniques reliably from her second promotor (Prof. Leendert Looijenga), the clinical relevance from her first co-promotor (Dr. Jose Hardillo), and the beauty and added value of tissue section and resection specimen from her second co-promotor (Prof. Senada Koljenović). The combination of these skills, Martine’s interest in epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition, and her preference for flowcharts, led to a rough design of a companion diagnostic for targeted therapies directed against receptor tyrosine kinase MET. This obtained result is not only the basis for her dissertation, but also illustrative for her affinity to translate molecular insights into clinical applications. It is her aspiration to continue contributing to the improvement of patient care in the future.
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