What began as a curious question from the biotech side grew into a collaboration that is far from obvious. A biotech company with clinical urgency, a research group with deep immunological expertise, and a scientific question that required technology capable of visualizing molecules that normally remain invisible.

Within days, Oncode Institute was at the table to make exactly that collaboration possible: connecting biotech, the Linde Meyaard Group at UMC Utrecht and Oncode Institute, and the single-molecule experts led by Kristina Ganzinger at AMOLF and Oncode Institute. In record time, legal frameworks were set, agreements were arranged, and the real work could begin. “Our role is simple,” says Emil Pot, Business Developer at Oncode Institute. “We make sure science and application meet earlier. That’s why we bring these two worlds together with one shared goal: to outsmart cancer.”

In Linde Meyaard’s lab, the first puzzle piece fell into place quickly. The protein MARCO, known from macrophages, was never before linked to LAIR-1 but indeed proved to be a novel functional binding partner for this receptor. The real surprise came soon after: the binding didn’t occur between two different cells but on the very same cell. “We thought LAIR-1 was always a brake on macrophages,” Meyaard says. “But suddenly we saw there was a brake on that brake. That changes how we view immune regulation in tumors.”

Then it was up to AMOLF researcher Kristina Ganzinger to make the mechanism visible. Using single-molecule imaging, researchers in her team watched the two receptors move through the membrane like tiny points of light, seeking and influencing each other. “Only when we literally saw it happen we understood precisely how these receptors influence each other,” says Ganzinger. “And this wasn’t a side note it was a new regulatory mechanism for LAIR-1.”

For the biotech company, the discovery was more than scientific insight: it provided direction. The discovery is published in Science Signaling (d.d. 9^th December). 

This is what happens when clinical urgency meets academic curiosity. The company wanted speed: to understand whether this discovery could be therapeutically meaningful. The academic team wanted to know exactly what was happening at the molecular level. And as a bridge builder stood Oncode Institute, ensuring the conversations could happen smoothly and correctly: contracts arranged, interests aligned, trust secured.

What began as a loose observation evolved into a mechanism that can potentially refine immunotherapies and simultaneously shows how collaboration amplifies the impact of science. Because major steps in cancer research often begin with something simple: the willingness to truly outsmart cancer.