Hugo received his PhD (cum laude) in the lab of Hans Clevers (Hubrecht Institute) where he used advanced mouse genetics and microscopy to characterize (new) stem cell populations in the mouse intestine, skin and intestinal cancer. Moreover, he pioneered live-cell imaging of stem cell behavior within the first organoid models (mini-organs in a dish).
After a brief postdoc at the Kavli Institute of Nanoscience (Delft University of Technology) on cutting edge microscopic technologies, he initiated his own research line in the MCR department of the UMC Utrecht to understand heterogeneity in (stem) cell behavior during tumor formation and cancer progression. In 2016, he became group leader in the MCR department, where his group exploits the unique combination of I) primary human cancer samples (tumor organoids), II) molecular genetics to engineer and manipulate human cancers and III) real-time imaging to monitor and quantify cellular behavior to study functional heterogeneity between phenotypic and genetically diverse cancer cells, with the long term goal to understand and prevent cancer occurrence and therapy resistance.
