Hannes Bode

Hannes Bode has graduated from Radboud University in the Netherlands with a Master in Molecular Life-Science. His studies were focused on the topic of medical epigenomics. This challenging field seeks to describe the complex networks that regulate human biology and how disruption of these networks can lead to diseases. With this background he has acquired substantial knowledge about bioinformatics as well as genomics and molecular biology.

Hannes was already able to apply these competences in his academic research internships. At the Department of analytical chemistry of the Radboud Institute of Molecules and Materials he worked on statistical methods to detect minimal amounts of cancer cells in patients’ blood samples.

In an additional research internship at the Lund University Diabetes Research Center he got the opportunity to work on cohort data of Diabetes patients. In this project he sought to describe different subtypes of Type 2 Diabetes with the goal of understanding the heterogeneity of the disease courses of these patients.

To set his first steps into research, Hannes will perform his doctoral studies at the Helsinki University under guidance of Dr. Jaakko Kaprio and Dr. Miina Ollikainen, who both are experienced and accredited in the field of twin research. The focus of this project will be on the investigation of heritable and environmental factors in breast and skin cancer discordant twin pairs.

Hannes’ PhD project will use the twins’ shared genetic and environmental background in describing “why in certain pairs only one individual gets diagnosed with cancer”. This could lead to the discovery of additional, contributing, -biological factors on the regulation of cancer as a complex multi-level disease.