prof. dr. Sandra Heskamp

About Sandra Heskamp

Sandra Heskamp studied Biomedical Sciences at the Radboud University of Nijmegen. In 2009, she graduated in two master’s: Epidemiology and Biostatistics and Human Pathobiology. That same year she started her PhD project Molecular Imaging of Receptor Tyrosine Kinases in Cancer, a collaborative project between the department of Nuclear Medicine and Medical Oncology. During her PhD she also participated in a European consortium (Innovative Medicines Initiative) that investigated the potential of diffusion weighted MRI and [18F]FLT as early biomarkers of treatment response in cancer. In addition, she worked as a visiting researcher at the Technical University Munich to study the potential of alpha-emitting radionuclides for cancer treatment. In June 2014 she obtained her PhD and she started working as a post-doc at the department of Medical Imaging at the Radboudumc. Here, she started her own research group focusing on nuclear imaging and therapy in immuno-oncology. Together with scientists in her group she develops novel radiotracers to visualize tumor cells and their immune-microenvironment, in order to study the biology of cancer in an in vivo manner. Futhermore, these tracers are labeled with therapeutic radionuclides to specifically deliver a high dose of radiation to a tumor. Her current research focuses on the radiobiological and immunological effects of radiation on tumor cells and their immune-microenvironment. 

Personal prizes & awards

• 2023 - NWO Perspectief Grant: "Understanding the radiobiology of therapeutic medical radionuclides"
• 2022 - Supervisor of the Year Award - Radboud Institute for Molecular Life Sciences
• 2021 - VIDI personal grant: "Carbonic Anhydrase IX Targeted Alpha Therapy for selective killing of hypoxic therapy resistant cancer cells"
• 2019 - X² Ambition Award: This award is intended young, ambitious women who show exemplary behaviour within Radboudumc, but also outside their organization.
• 2017 - EANM Eckert & Ziegler Abstract Award 2017 for “Monitoring tumor PD-L1 expression with microSPECT/CT during radiotherapy”
• 2016 - VENI personal grant: "Towards better patient selection for immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy for cancer: imaging of the PD-L1 and PD-1 pathway"
• 2016 - KWF Bas Mulder Young Investigator Grant: "Towards personalized use of immune checkpoint inhibitors by imaging of the PD-1/PD-L1 pathway"
• 2015 - SNMMI Nuclear Oncology Council Young Investigator Award for “Pretargeted radioimmunotherapy with Bi-213 in mice with CEA-expressing colon cancer xenografts”
• 2013 - Travel grant Dutch Cancer Society (KWF) to perform a 3-month research project at the Technische Universität München, Germany
• 2012 - Dr. I.B.M. Frye Stipendium, scholarship for talented female PhD students, awarded by the Radboud University Nijmegen

Additional Functions

• Chair of Dutch Society for Clinical Radiochemistry
• Co-chair of the Onco-Immunology & Therapy study group of the European Society of Molecular Imaging
• Editorial board member of Nederlands tijdschrift voor Nucleaire Geneeskunde
• Editorial board member European Journal of Molecular Imaging and Nuclear Medicine Research
• Chair Radboud Technology Center Imaging
• Member of the Central Animal Facility advisory board
• Member Scientific Advisory Board NRG|PALLAS
• Co-founder, shareholder and scientific advisor for Aurelius Therapeutics B.V. (Radboudumc spin-off)