Dr. Dik C. van Gent is currently a course director of the Research Master program Molecular Medicine and coordinator of the theme ‘oncology’ of the medical Bachelor program. He studied biology in Utrecht and did his PhD research at the Netherlands Cancer Institute (Amsterdam). He investigated various aspects of the HIV DNA integration reaction. After receiving his PhD in 1993, he did three years of Postdoctoral Research at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda (USA). His research focuses on continued investigations into DNA double-strand break repair, with emphasis on the non-homologous end-joining pathway. More recently, he concentrated on studying the effects of chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and targeted therapy in various types of cancer tissues using ex vivo culture methods. He had the honor of getting awards in  EMBO long-term fellowship; a biennial prize of the Netherlands Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (NVBMB) in 1997; Netherlands Scientific Organization (NWO); the Netherlands Cancer Foundation (KWF); the Association for International Cancer Research (AICR); and the European Union.