Jacco van Rheenen was originally trained in a variety of imaging techniques during his PhD with Dr. Kees Jalink at the Netherlands Cancer Institute. He was among the first to optimize imaging and develop software to quantitatively measure FRET on confocal microscopes. In order to broader his scales, he obtained a KWF fellowship to do a postdoc in the United States in the lab of Dr. John Condeelis at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. There he extended his imaging experience by imaging mammary tumors intravitally including two-photon microscopy and became an expert in the field of intravital FRET imaging.

In 2008 he was appointed as group leader at the Hubrecht Institute, where he utilizes his imaging techniques to visualize processes that are required for the metastasis of tumor cells in living animals. In July 2014 he was appointed professor in Intravital Microscopy at the University Medical Center Utrecht. In October 2017 he became senior group leader at the Netherlands Cancer Institute (NKI) in Amsterdam. In 2009, he was awarded a VIDI award from Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research. In 2013, he received the Stem Cells Young Investigator Award. In 2015, he was awarded an ERC consolidator grant, and in 2017 the Dr. Josef Steiner Cancer Research Foundation Award.

• 2022 VICI award, Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), Netherlands

• 2019 Ammodo Science Award, Netherlands

• 2017: Dr. Josef Steiner Cancer Research Foundation Award

• 2015: ERC consolidator grant by the European Research Counsel

• 2013: Stem Cells Young Investigator Award 2013

• 2008: VIDI grant by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO)

• 2006: Fellowship for fundamental and (pre-)clinical cancer research from the Dutch Cancer Society (KWF).

1. Azkanaz M, Corominas-Murtra B, Ellenbroek SIJ, Bruens L, Webb AT, Laskaris D, … & van Rheenen J. Retrograde movements determine effective stem cell numbers in the intestine. Nature. 2022 Jul;607(7919):548-554. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-04962-0

2. Hannezo, E., Scheele, C. L., Moad, M., Drogo, N., Heer, R., Sampogna, R. V., ... & van Rheenen. J, Simons, B. D. (2017). A unifying theory of branching morphogenesis. Cell, 171(1), 242-255.

3. Scheele, C. L., Hannezo, E., Muraro, M. J., Zomer, A., Langedijk, N. S., Van Oudenaarden, A., ... & Van Rheenen, J. (2017). Identity and dynamics of mammary stem cells during branching morphogenesis. Nature, 542(7641), 313.

4. Zomer, A., Maynard, C., Verweij, F. J., Kamermans, A., Schäfer, R., Beerling, E., ... & van Rheenen, J. (2015). In vivo imaging reveals extracellular vesicle-mediated phenocopying of metastatic behavior. Cell, 161(5), 1046-1057.

5. Ritsma, L., Ellenbroek, S. I., Zomer, A., Snippert, H. J., de Sauvage, F. J., Simons, B. D., ... & van Rheenen, J. (2014). Intestinal crypt homeostasis revealed at single-stem-cell level by in vivo live imaging. Nature, 507(7492), 362.