Rate My Professor Martine Lamfers

Martine Lamfers, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Neurosurgery at Erasmus MC, where she heads the Neurosurgery Laboratory. She earned her MSc in Medical Biology from the University of Amsterdam and her PhD in Gene Therapy from Leiden University. Following postdoctoral research at the Department of Neurosurgery at VU University Medical Center and in Neuro-Oncology laboratories at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, she joined Erasmus MC in 2007 to establish a laboratory focused on the development and clinical translation of novel treatments for malignant brain tumors. She also completed international traineeships at the Department of Pediatric Oncology at Gustave Roussy Institute in Paris in 2001 and at Massachusetts General Hospital in 2003.

Lamfers specializes in patient-derived model systems to study human diseases and evaluate novel therapies, with a focus on oncology and brain tumors, particularly malignant gliomas. As Principal Investigator of the GLIOscreen research group, she oversees a platform utilizing the Erasmus Brain Tumor Cell Culture Repository of over 350 patient-derived samples for biobanking, in vitro drug screening, molecular analysis, clinical data integration, and in vivo validation. This work correlates treatment efficacy to tumor molecular profiles for personalized strategies and translates findings into clinical decision-making for glioblastoma patients. Her research encompasses oncolytic viral therapy, innate and acquired immune responses in glioblastoma, and innovative model systems like serum-free glioma stem cell cultures. Key publications include Balvers et al., 'Serum-free culture success of glial tumors is related to specific molecular profiles and expression of extracellular matrix-associated gene modules' (Neuro-Oncology, 2013); Posthoorn-Verheul et al., 'Optimized culturing yields high success rates and preserves molecular heterogeneity, enabling personalized screening for high-grade gliomas' (npj Precision Oncology, 2025); and Zekanovic et al., 'Cut the fat: targeting cholesterol and lipid metabolism in glioblastoma' (Cell Death & Disease, 2025).