Edwin Cuppen

Edwin Cuppen is professor of Human Genetics and runs his research lab at the Center for Molecular Medicine, University Medical Center Utrecht. Furthermore, he is director of a national large scale sequencing center, the Hartwig Medical Foundation, in Amsterdam.

He is an expert in DNA sequencing and applies next-generation sequencing for both research and diagnostic purposes. Edwin is a pioneer in personalized genomics, carrying his genome not only in his own cells, but also on his iPad.

In 2005, Edwin Cuppen received a European Young Investigators Award and in 2013, he was awarded a prestigious NWO Vici grant for dissecting the molecular mechanisms behind and functional consequences of structural variation in genomes. In his current work he combines experimental methods, including next-generation DNA sequencing technology and other -omics techniques, with patient cohort and cellular model systems and integrative bioinformatic approaches to understand the causes and consequences of genetic variation under normal and disease conditions like cancer and congenital disease.

He is also one of the initiators of the nationally operating Center for Personalized Cancer Treatment (www.cpct.nl, 2010) for which he oversees the centralized genome analysis and bioinformatic data integration efforts. This national collaboration aims for the stratification of cancer patients towards targeted treatments based on DNA measurements of the tumor and to bring these developments to all cancer patients in The Netherlands in a timely and responsible manner. To this end, the Hartwig Medical Foundation (www.hartwigmedicalfoundation.nl), an independent not-for-profit organisation that was made possible by philanthropy, was established in 2015. Edwin is scientific director at HMF where systematic whole genome and RNA sequencing, bioinformatic analyses and clinical data integration are performed for cancer patients.