Exercise Oncology Research Group

Meet our team

Associate professor

Laurien Buffart

Laurien Buffart is a group leader / principal investigator of the Exercise Oncology research group at Radboudumc, Nijmegen, the Netherlands. She is a human movement scientist and epidemiologist by training. After obtaining her PhD, she started with exercise oncology research, aiming to improve health-related quality of life and treatment outcome of patients with cancer. Her work is supported by several personal grants including an EMGO+ fellowship from Amsterdam UMC, Young Investigator “Bas Mulder Award’ grant from the Dutch Cancer Society, VIDI grant from the Dutch Science Organization (NWO/ZonMW), and a Hypatia tenure track grant from Radboudumc. She has a visiting associate professor position at the Exercise Medicine Research Institute of the Edith Cowan University in Joondalup.

Postdoctoral researcher

Marieke ten Tusscher

Marieke ten Tusscher is a human movement scientist and physical therapist by training. She has worked as a physical therapist in a hospital specialized in treating patients with cancer for more than 10 years. Over the past years, her research has focused on developing, evaluating, and implementing tailored and goal-directed exercise interventions for patients with cancer, including metastatic cancer.  
Postdoctoral researcher

Marlou-Floor Kenkhuis​​

Marlou-Floor Kenkhuis is a nutritionist by training with a specialization in Epidemiology. Her PhD thesis focused on the association between lifestyle factors such as nutrition, physical activity and body composition with quality of life, fatigue, and neuropathy in colorectal cancer survivors. As a post-doc, she now focuses on lifestyle and the gut microbiota, and the associations with treatment toxicity and outcome.
PhD candidate

Isa Mast​

Isa Mast has a Bachelor’s degree in Medical Natural Sciences and a Master’s degree in Human Movement Sciences. During her PhD trajectory, she will explore the physiological mechanisms of action through which exercise may achieve effects on cancer-related fatigue and tumor outcomes in patients with cancer.

PhD candidate

Calvin Brouwer​

Calvin Brouwer is a medical doctor by training, with a special interest in the effect of exercise in patients with cancer. During his PhD trajectory, he will study the influence of physical activity and fitness on chemotherapy treatment modifications and clinical outcome in patients with metastatic cancer.
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PhD candidate

Anna Ubink ​

Anna Ubink is a biomedical scientist with a special interest in the immunological consequences of exercise in patients with cancer. During her PhD trajectory, she will examine blood samples and tumor biopsies obtained during several randomized controlled exercise trials, to study the effect of physical exercise on immune function and immune cell tumor infiltration.
PhD Candidate

Milan Kos​

Milan Kos is a medical doctor by training, with a special interest in supportive cancer care. He is a PhD student at the Amsterdam UMC. During his PhD trajectory, he will study the feasibility of using wearable devices and smartphone applications during cancer treatment and explore the association between wearable device metrics and adverse events.
PhD Candidate

Koen Frenken

Koen Frenken is a biomedical scientist and human movement scientist by training. During his PhD trajectory, he will focus on the disruption of circadian rhythms within colorectal cancer patient as part of the EnCoRe study. 

PhD candidate

Lilian Manning

Lilian Manning is a biomedical scientist with a special interest in clinical human movement sciences. During her PhD trajectory, she will examine the effects of physical activity on treatment complications and toxicity in patients with cancer.

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PhD Candidate

Annemone Siffels

Annemone Siffels is a nutrition and health scientist with a special interest in epidemiology and public health. During her PhD trajectory she investigates if replacing sedentary time with standing, physical activity, or sleep in renal or colorectal cancer survivors affects associations with adiposity, fatigue, and quality of life. This project is a collaboration between Radboudumc and Maastricht University in an effort to combine findings from the ReLife or EnCoRe cohorts. Annemone is also part of the Epidemiology group in the IQ Health department in Radboudumc.

Completed PhD theses