Dr. S.L.W. (Stijn) Koolen

Since 2015, Stijn is a post-doctoral fellow at the laboratory of translational pharmacology at the department of Medical oncology. His main research is focused on the relationship between pharmacokinetics of oncology drugs and toxicity or response. A better understanding of this relationship may lead to a better and more personalized treatment for many oncology drugs. An example is pharmacokinetically guided dosing (TDM), which is adjusting the administered dose based on the measured drug concentration in blood.

Clinical pharmacology in oncology and nuclear medicine

Stijn Koolen studied pharmaceutical sciences at the Utrecht University and obtained his PharmD degree in 2006. In that year he started with a PhD training at the Netherlands Cancer Institute (NKI) Amsterdam. His research focused on the clinical development of orally administered anti-cancer drugs. During his PhD he followed a clinical training to become a Clinical pharmacologist. He defended his thesis “Intravenous to oral switch in anticancer chemotherapy – focus on taxanes and gemcitabine” in 2011.
In 2011 he started with a four year specialization phase at the Spaarne Gasthuis Haarlem to become a hospital pharmacist. Further specialization in pediatric pharmacology and oncology were done during internships at the Amsterdam Medical Center and Erasmus Medical Center.
Since 2015, Stijn is hospital pharmacist and clinical pharmacologist at the department of Medical Oncology and department of Pharmacy of the Erasmus MC. 

A complete overview of publications can be found on Pubmed.

Teaching responsibilities include supervising master students and PhD students and lecturing on a regular basis. Currently I supervise research projects of 6 PhD students of whom 3 as their co-promotor. Additionally, I supervise medical students with their 6-month research projects. Since 2016 I’m a faculty member of ‘Wengen op de Wadden’ which aims to provide training for pulmonologist treating lung cancer.

• Member of the ethical board of the Erasmus MC;
• Supervising hospital pharmacist of the department of nuclear medicine, Erasmus MC.

2018; KWF – Fase I dose escalation study with 225Ac – PSMA in patients with prostate cancer (project 11960; Project leader dr. T Brabander; € 598.236)
2018; KWF Implementation of Therapeutic Drug Monitoring (TDM) to optimize treatment outcome in patients treated with oral targeted anticancer drugs (TUNE project) (Project leader dr, I Desar; € 683.113)
2009 - 2011, ZONMW “Pilotprogramma Translationeel Onderzoek – Crossing the barrier: from intravenous to effective oral formulations of chemotherapy” Prinicpal Investigator Prof. dr. J. Schellens. (€ 470.505)

Other external funding

2019; Stichting De Merel – Safety of topical 5-FU crème in patients carrying a common DPYD vatriant (€ 37.800)
2019; Astellas – development bioanalytical assay for determination of enzalutamide (€ 28.500)
2018; Stichting De Merel – CYP3A4*22 based dosing of TKI`s in cancer patients: a new way of personalized therapy (€ 38.650)
2018: Cristal Therapeutics – intratumoral PK of Cripec docetaxel (part 2) (€67.239)
2018; Novartis –development bioanalytical assay for determination of ribociclib (€49.973)
2017; Mrace – PhD Erasmus MC efficiency research. Cost-effectiveness of Personalized Endocrine Treatment for Patients with Breast Cancer, Therapeutic Drug Monitoring of Tamoxifen’ (€ 150.000)
2017; Mrace – Pilot Erasmus MC. Personalized immunotherapy: Therapeutic drug monitoring of Nivolumab (€ 50.000)
2016; Vrolijk Stichting “Development analytical assay of multiple TKI’s” (€ 33.925)
2016; Cristal therapeutics “Intratumoral pharmacokinetics of Cripec® docetaxel” (€ 99.020)