Carré
Guest staff

prof.dr. L.W.M.M. Terstappen (Leon)

Honorary Professor
TNW-BIS-MCBP
Carré C4437
l.w.m.m.terstappen@utwente.nl
+31534892425
Business card

Brief summary of research over last five years

Leon Terstappen is a medical doctor with a PhD in biophysics who is intrigued by finding technology solutions to medical problems. He has become an international recognized expert in cytometry and pioneered the detection of rare cells.  Early in his career he explored the differentiation pathways of hematopoietic cell lineages and identified the phenotype of the hematopoietic stem cell. With the observation of cancer cells in cell suspensions used for stem cell transplantation of breast cancer patients, he changed his focus and started his pioneering work in Circulating Tumor Cells (CTC).   He was in charge of the development of the CellSearch system, the only FDA cleared platform to enumerate CTC in blood. Using this technology, it was demonstrated that the presence of CTC in patients with no known metastatic disease are at high risk for disease recurrence. In patients with metastatic disease the CTC load is strongly associated with poor outcome and the strongest predictor of therapy response. His research efforts at the University of Twente focused on further technology development to identify, isolate and characterize CTC in all patients with disseminated cancer and demonstration of the clinical utility of the developed tools through national and international collaborations with clinical research centers.  Our[EMA(1]  observation of small objects being present in blood of cancer patients and their load being strongly associated with clinical outcome lead to the[EMA(2]  interest in Extracellular Vesicles (EV). We[EMA(3]  baptized these objects as tumor derived EV (tdEV) and observed a large yet unexplained heterogeneity in appearance. Recently technology has been invented and developed to determine the secretome of individual CTC and assess their response to therapy. This is currently being explored in hormone sensitive metastatic prostate cancer through an NWO/KWF project in collaboration with Erasmus. The ultimate objective is to guide individual treatment of cancer patients throughout the course of their disease and along the way validate the “liquid biopsies” technologies to truly enable personalized cancer care.

 In 2007, Terstappen started the department of Medical Cell BioPhysics at The University of Twente. From 1994 to 2007, he was Chief Scientific Officer at Immunicon Corporation, Huntingdon Valley, PA, USA. From 1987 to 1994, he held various research positions in the research department of Becton Dickinson Immunocytometry systems in Mountain View CA, USA. He obtained his PhD from the University of Twente and his medical degree from the University of Groningen, The Netherlands.

Expertise

  • Medicine and Dentistry

    • Circulating Tumor Cell
    • Patient
    • Cells
    • Neoplasm
    • Prostate Cancer
    • Diagnosis

  • Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology

    • Sample
    • Antibody

Organisations

Publications

Jump to: 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022

2025

Advancing circulating tumor cell isolation and analysis: Development of optimized immunomagnetic techniques and molecular characterization approaches for early cancer detection (2025)[Thesis › PhD Thesis - Research UT, graduation UT]. University of Twente. Liu, P.https://doi.org/10.3990/1.9789036566094Unlocking cellular secrets: Innovations driving research in liver disease & cancer (2025)[Thesis › PhD Thesis - Research UT, graduation UT]. University of Twente. Booijink, R. S.https://doi.org/10.3990/1.9789036564823Silica-coated magnetic nanobeads in a flow enrichment target capture Halbach (FETCH) magnetic separation system for circulating tumor cell enrichment (2025)FEBS letters, 599(5), 724-738. Liu, P., He, S., Mentink, A., Hart, P., Wu, Y., Terstappen, L. W. M. M., Jonkheijm, P. & Stevens, M.https://doi.org/10.1002/1873-3468.15094

2024

A nanowell platform to identify, sort and expand high antibody-producing cells (2024)Scientific reports, 14(1). Article 9457. Abali, F., Schasfoort, R., Nijland, S., Wittenberns, J., Tibbe, A. G. J., den Hartog, M., Boon, L. & Terstappen, L. W. M. M.https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-60054-1A new perspective on crystallopathies in rheumatology and orthopaedics with Raman spectroscopy (2024)[Thesis › PhD Thesis - Research UT, graduation UT]. University of Twente. Niessink, T.https://doi.org/10.3990/1.9789036563475Combining rVAR2 and Anti-EpCAM to Increase the Capture Efficiency of Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer Cell Lines in the Flow Enrichment Target Capture Halbach (FETCH) Magnetic Separation System (2024)International journal of molecular sciences, 25(18). Article 9816. He, S., Liu, P., Wu, Y., Agerbæk, M., Salanti, A., Terstappen, L. W. M. M., Jonkheijm, P. & Stevens, M.https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms25189816Novel therapeutic strategies for the treatment of liver diseases (2024)[Thesis › PhD Thesis - Research UT, graduation UT]. University of Twente. Geervliet, E. K.https://doi.org/10.3990/1.9789036561372Identification of functional and diverse circulating cancer‐associated fibroblasts in metastatic castration‐naïve prostate cancer patients (2024)Molecular oncology (E-pub ahead of print/First online). Booijink, R., Terstappen, L. W. M. M., Dathathri, E., Isebia, K., Kraan, J., Martens, J. & Bansal, R.https://doi.org/10.1002/1878-0261.13653A magnetic microneedle to isolate single immunomagnetically labeled cells (2024)Lab on a chip, 24(3), 460-466. Stevens, M., Harder, P. & Terstappen, L. W. M. M.https://doi.org/10.1039/d3lc00920cTraining an automated circulating tumor cell classifier when the true classification is uncertain (2024)PNAS Nexus, 3(2). Nanou, A., Stoecklein, N. H., Doerr, D., Driemel, C., Terstappen, L. W. M. M., Coumans, F. A. W. & Furmanski, P.https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgae048

2023

Flow-based immunomagnetic enrichment of circulating tumor cells from diagnostic leukapheresis product (2023)Molecular oncology (E-pub ahead of print/First online). Stevens, M., Mentink, A., Coumans, F. A. W., Dathathri, E., Isebia, K. T., Kraan, J., de Wit, R., Martens, J. W. M. & Terstappen, L. W. M. M.https://doi.org/10.1002/1878-0261.13565Improving circulating tumor cell detection from diagnostic leukapheresis material: Getting the most out of it (2023)[Thesis › PhD Thesis - Research UT, graduation UT]. University of Twente. Stevens, M.https://doi.org/10.3990/1.9789036559096Measuring antigen expression of cancer cell lines and circulating tumour cells (2023)Scientific reports, 13(1). Article 6051. Mentink, A., Isebia, K. T., Kraan, J., Terstappen, L. W. M. M. & Stevens, M.https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-33179-yHepatocyte survival and proliferation by fibroblast growth factor 7 attenuates liver inflammation, and fibrogenesis during acute liver injury via paracrine mechanisms (2023)Biomedicine and Pharmacotherapy, 167. Article 115612. Geervliet, E., Terstappen, L. W. M. M. & Bansal, R.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopha.2023.115612Improved enrichment of circulating tumor cells from diagnostic leukapheresis product (2023)Cytometry. Part A, 103(11), 881-888. Stevens, M., Mentink, A., Nanou, A., Coumans, F. A. W., Isebia, K. T., Kraan, J., Hamberg, P., Martens, J. W. M. & Terstappen, L. W. M. M.https://doi.org/10.1002/cyto.a.24779Data from Comparing Circulating Tumor Cell Counts with Dynamic Tumor Size Changes as Predictor of Overall Survival: A Quantitative Modeling Framework (2023)[Non-textual form › Web publication/site]. Netterberg, I., Karlsson, M. O., Terstappen, L. W. M. M., Koopman, M., Punt, C. J. A. & Friberg, L. E.https://doi.org/10.1158/1078-0432.c.6529016In Vivo Detection of Circulating Cancer-Associated Fibroblasts in Breast Tumor Mouse Xenograft: Impact of Tumor Stroma and Chemotherapy (2023)Cancers, 15(4). Article 1127. Lu, T., Oomens, L., Terstappen, L. W. M. M. & Prakash, J.https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers15041127Circulating Tumor Cells (CTC) and Tumor-Derived Extracellular Vesicles (tdEV) (2023)In Current Cancer Research (pp. 113-136) (Current Cancer Research; Vol. Part F1235). Springer. Nanou, A., Beekman, P., Enciso Martinez, A. & Terstappen, L. W. M. M.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22903-9_6Single Cell Secretome Analyses of Hepatic Stellate Cells: Aiming for Single Cell Phenomics (2023)In Hepatic Stellate Cells: Methods and Protocols (pp. 257-268) (Methods in Molecular Biology; Vol. 2669). Humana Press. Booijink, R., Terstappen, L. & Bansal, R.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-3207-9_16Tumor-Derived Extracellular Vesicles as Complementary Prognostic Factors to Circulating Tumor Cells in Metastatic Breast Cancer (2023)JCO Precision Oncology, 7. Article e2200372. Nanou, A., Miao, J., Coumans, F. A. W., Dolce, E. M., Darga, E., Barlow, W., Smerage, J. B., Paoletti, C., Godwin, A. K., Pusztai, L., Sharma, P., Thompson, A., Hortobagyi, G. N., Terstappen, L. W. M. M. & Hayes, D. F.https://doi.org/10.1200/PO.22.00372

2022

Characterizing Circulating Tumor Cells and Tumor-Derived Extracellular Vesicles in Metastatic Castration-Naive and Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer Patients (2022)Cancers, 14(18). Article 4404. Isebia, K. T., Dathathri, E., Verschoor, N., Nanou, A., de Jong, A. C., Coumans, F. A. W., Terstappen, L. W. M. M., Kraan, J., Martens, J. W. M., Bansal, R. & Lolkema, M. P.https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers14184404StarDist Image Segmentation Improves Circulating Tumor Cell Detection (2022)Cancers, 14(12). Article 2916. Stevens, M., Nanou, A., Terstappen, L. W. M. M., Driemel, C., Stoecklein, N. H. & Coumans, F. A. W.https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers14122916Liquid Biopsy Based Circulating Biomarkers in Metastatic Prostate Cancer (2022)Frontiers in oncology, 12. Article 863472. Dathathri, E., Isebia, K. T., Abali, F., Lolkema, M. P., Martens, J. W. M., Terstappen, L. W. M. M. & Bansal, R.https://doi.org/10.3389/fonc.2022.863472Karyotype diversification in colorectal cancer (2022)[Thesis › PhD Thesis - Research UT, graduation UT]. University of Twente. Bollen, Y.https://doi.org/10.3990/1.9789036553506Leukapheresis increases circulating tumour cell yield in non-small cell lung cancer, counts related to tumour response and survival (2022)British journal of cancer, 126, 409-418. Tamminga, M., Andree, K. C., van den Bos, H., Hiltermann, T. J. N., Mentink, A., Spierings, D. C. J., Lansdorp, P., Timens, W., Schuuring, E., Terstappen, L. W. M. M. & Groen, H. J. M.https://doi.org/10.1038/s41416-021-01634-0

Research profiles

Courses academic year 2025/2026

Courses in the current academic year are added at the moment they are finalised in the Osiris system. Therefore it is possible that the list is not yet complete for the whole academic year.

Courses academic year 2024/2025

Courses academic year 2023/2024

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University of Twente

Carré (building no. 15), room C4437
Hallenweg 23
7522 NH Enschede
Netherlands

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