Jan C. Oosterwijk, MD, PhD

Study: MD, Free University (VU), Amsterdam, 1986
Registered clinical geneticist, University Medical Centre Utrecht/Wilhelmina Children’s Hospital, 1991
PhD thesis: Fetal Cells in Maternal Blood, Leiden University, 1998

Email

Papers by J.C. Oosterwijk in PubMed, GoogleScholar
Profiles: Researchgate, LinkedIn
Keywords: oncogenetics, hereditary breast cancer, hereditary ovarian cancer, BRCA1, BRCA2, genetic counselling, HEBON , education
Extracurricular: plays the tenor sax in the department's jazz combo GeneXpress

News
"It Is What It Is" A personal comment on genetic counselling. Oosterwijk JC. J Clin Oncol. 2016;34(11):1278-80

Short CV

Jan C. (Cornelis) Oosterwijk trained as a clinical geneticist at Utrecht University and the Wilhelmina Children’s Hospital. He worked in Leiden University Medical Centre for 4 years, mainly on dysmorphology and prenatal diagnosis. After moving to the University Medical Centre Groningen in 1996, he focussed on clinical oncogenetics, combining clinical practice with research and teaching & training.

He was a board member of the Dutch Clinical Genetics Society (VKGN), chaired numerous VKGN committees, and was clinical genetics representative in the Medical Specialists’ Registration Board (MSRC) of the Royal Dutch Medical Society (KNMG).

He is also a member of the medical staff of Leeuwarden Medical Centre. He has been formally involved in the training of specialists in clinical genetics in the UMCG for 12 years, and in national training programmes of specialists in adjacent medical disciplines (internal medicine, gynaecology, oncology, pediatrics). He currently teaches part of the MD curriculum (both on genetics and problem solving) and is a trainer in the regional teach-the-teacher programme.

My motivation

I find working with patients and families, trying to answer their genetic and oncogenetic questions very inspiring. These questions challenge me to keep up-to-date in knowledge, and to be accurate and understandable in counselling. Moreover, if a clear answer is not available, these questions generate research ideas and projects that may lead to new knowledge. This increases our insight, which may be applicable in subsequent genetic counselling sessions, where new questions arise. It is stimulating to involve and coach young researchers in these quests: translating clinical issues into research projects and research results back into clinical applications.

Scientific contribution and publications

My main clinical and scientific interest is hereditary and familial cancer, with a focus on hereditary breast and ovarian cancer. I am involved in studies covering the area from molecular diagnosis, genetic counselling, risk assessment and communication, screening and cancer prevention. This requires close collaboration with other disciplines (molecular genetics, surgery, gynaecology, epidemiology, medical oncology) in the UMCG, as well as national and international collaborations, mainly through the Dutch joint study on Hereditary Breast and Ovarian Cancer Netherlands (Hebon), which I have chaired since 2010.

I have given several invited lectures at international meetings, such as those of the NL and UK Clinical Genetics Societies, the IMPACT consortium, the British Society of Human Genetics and the Indonesian National Cancer Society.

As co-editor I was involved in the latest Dutch text book on medical genetics: Leerboek Medische Genetica, Bijlsma EK, Oosterwijk JC, et al. (editors), Reed Business, Amsterdam 2005, 7th edition 2011, ISBN 9789035227705. I further supervise several genetic counsellors, medical students, psychologists-in-training and PhD students, which usually leads to peer-reviewed publications in international journals.

To date, I have more than 130 peer-reviewed publications listed in Pubmed, including some in high-impact journals like NEJM, Lancet, J MedGenet, Nature Genetics, J Clin Oncol and Brit J Cancer. These papers have been cited over 3500 times, leading to an H-index of 31 in Web of Knowledge and 37 in Google Scholar.

Selected papers

• Bias explains most of the parent-of-origin effect on breast cancer risk in BRCA1/2 mutation carriers. Vos JR, Oosterwijk JC, ..., van der Hout AH, ... Ausems MG, Mourits MJ, de Bock GH. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2016 Jun 8. pii: cebp.0182.2016.
• "It Is What It Is". Oosterwijk JC. J Clin Oncol. 2016 Apr 10;34(11):1278-80. doi: 10.1200/JCO.2015.65.8138.
• Inverse birth cohort effects in ovarian cancer: Increasing risk in BRCA1/2 mutation carriers and decreasing risk in the general population. Vos JR, Mourits MJ, Teixeira N, Jansen L, Oosterwijk JC, de Bock GH. Gynecol Oncol. 2016;140(2):289-94. doi: 10.1016/j.ygyno.2015.11.029.
• Bias Correction Methods Explain Much of the Variation Seen in Breast Cancer Risks of BRCA1/2 Mutation Carriers. Vos JR, Hsu L, Brohet RM, Mourits MJ, de Vries J, Malone KE, Oosterwijk JC, de Bock GH. J Clin Oncol. 2015;33(23):2553-62. doi: 10.1200/JCO.2014.59.0463.
• Rebbeck TR, Mitra N, Wan F, Sinilnikova OM, …, Oosterwijk JC, … Teo SH, Selkirk CG, Hulick PJ, Andrulis I. Association of type and location of BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations with risk of breast and ovarian cancer. JAMA. 2015;313(13):1347-61. doi: 10.1001/jama.2014.5985.
• Saadatmand S, Obdeijn IM, Rutgers EJ, Oosterwijk JC, ..., de Koning HJ, Tilanus-Linthorst MM. Survival benefit in women with BRCA1 mutation or familial risk in the MRI Screening Study (MRISC). Int J Cancer. 2015. doi:10.1002/ijc.29534.
• Kuchenbaecker KB, Ramus SJ, Tyrer J, Lee A, …, Oosterwijk JC, …; Consortium of Investigators of Modifiers of BRCA1 and BRCA2. Identification of six new susceptibility loci for invasive epithelial ovarian cancer. Nat Genet. 2015;47(2):164-71. doi: 10.1038/ng.3185.
• Vos JR, Teixeira N, van der Kolk DM, Mourits MJ, ... Vasen HF, Brohet RM; Hereditary Breast and Ovarian Cancer Research Group Netherlands, van der Hout AH, Jansen L, Oosterwijk JC, de Bock GH. Variation in mutation spectrum partly explains regional differences in the breast cancer risk of female BRCA mutation carriers in the Netherlands. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2014;23(11):2482-91. doi: 10.1158/1055-9965.EPI-13-1279. Epub 2014 Aug 7. PubMed PMID: 25103822.
• Oosterwijk JC , de Vries J, Mourits MJ, de Bock GH. Genetic testing and familial implications in breast-ovarian cancer families. Maturitas. 2014 ;78(4):252-7. doi: 10.1016/j.maturitas.2014.05.002.
• Saadatmand S, Vos JR, Hooning MJ, Oosterwijk JC, Koppert LB, de Bock GH, Ausems MG, van Asperen CJ, Aalfs CM, Gómez Garcia EB, Meijers-Heijboer H, Hoogerbrugge N, Piek M, Seynaeve C, Verhoef C, Rookus M, Tilanus-Linthorst MM; Hereditary Breast and Ovarian Cancer Research Group Netherlands (HEBON). Relevance and efficacy of breast cancer screening in BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers above 60 years: a national cohort study. Int J Cancer. 2014;135(12):2940-9. doi: 10.1002/ijc.28941.
• Bancroft EK, Page EC, Castro E, Lilja H, Vickers A, …, Oosterwijk JC, … McKinley J, Mitra AV, Moynihan C, Rennert G, Suri M, Wilson P, Killick E; IMPACT Collaborators, Moss S, Eeles RA. Targeted prostate cancer screening in BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers: results from the initial screening round of the IMPACT study. Eur Urol. 2014;66(3):489-99. doi: 10.1016/j.eururo.2014.01.003. Epub 2014 Jan 15.  Full text
• Brohet RM, Velthuizen ME, Hogervorst FB, Meijers-Heijboer HE, Seynaeve C, Collée MJ, Verhoef S, Ausems MG, Hoogerbrugge N, van Asperen CJ, Gómez García E, Menko F, Oosterwijk JC, Devilee P, van't Veer LJ, van Leeuwen FE, Easton DF, Rookus MA, Antoniou AC; HEBON Resource. Breast and ovarian cancer risks in a large series of clinically ascertained families with a high proportion of BRCA1 and BRCA2 Dutch founder mutations. J Med Genet. 2014;51(2):98-107. doi: 10.1136/jmedgenet-2013-101974.
• Saadatmand S, Tilanus-Linthorst MM, Rutgers EJ, Hoogerbrugge N, Oosterwijk JC, Tollenaar RA, Hooning M, Loo CE, Obdeijn IM, Heijnsdijk EA, de Koning HJ. Cost-effectiveness of screening women with familial risk for breast cancer with magnetic resonance imaging. J Natl Cancer Inst. 2013;105(17):1314-21. doi: 10.1093/jnci/djt203.