Tom Luijts

My PhD research focusses on somatic mutation-driven clones in histologically healthy tissues. Emerging evidence suggests that the underlying genomic alterations represent the earliest foundation of human carcinogenesis. I aim to investigate mutational patterns of early tumor evolution and spatial competition in post-mortem skin and head and neck samples from whole-body donors and peritumoral skin samples. My work is part of a multidisciplinary collaboration between surgical oncologists, human anatomists, histologists, dermatologists and bioinformaticians.  
 

• FWO PhD fellow, Lab of computational cancer genomics and tumor evolution. (11/2022 – now)
• Stand up to Cancer (Kom op tegen Kanker) EVdS PhD starting grant (2-10/2022) 
• Ghent University faculty mobility grant for a long stay abroad. (2-7/2022)
• Swedish advanced research fellowship. (11/2021-1/2022) 
• Research stay at the lab of E. Larsson at the University of Gothenburg, Göteborg, Sweden. (11/2021-7/2022)
• Master of Science in bioscience engineering: bioinformatics, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium. (2019-2021)
• Bachelor in bioscience engineering: cell and gene technology, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium. (2016-2019)
   

• Mechanistic basis of atypical TERT promoter mutations. Nature Communications, 2024 (PMID: 39557834)
• A clinically annotated post-mortem approach to study multi-organ somatic mutational clonality in normal tissues. Scientific Reports, 2022. (PMID: 35725896)
• Low immunogenicity of common cancer hot spot mutations resulting in false immunogenic selection signals. PLoS Genetics, 2021. (PMID: 33556087) 
   

• Lab address: Department of Human Structure and Repair, Unit of Anatomy and Embryology, Corneel Heymanslaan 10, UZP123, 9000 Ghent, Belgium
• LinkedIn 
• ORCID 
• ResearchGate 
• Google Scholar 
• Computational Cancer Genomics and Tumor Evolution lab