Ulrik Kristoffer Stoltze
Postdoctoral Fellow
Paediatrics Oncology Research Laboratory, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen, Denmark.
Biography
As a physician scientist I’ve worked to improve and expand the way we detect and treat children at high risk of cancer. Every year, a small number of children are born with genetic alterations that are highly likely to cause cancer in childhood.
In our lab, we have pioneered methods for detection of both known cancer predisposition alterations as well as potential new alterations. The primary method used today may be termed phenotype-first; this means that the cancer-causing alteration, although there since birth, is only detected after the cancer has occurred, eliminating the possibility for asymptomatic detection of the primary cancer through tumor surveillance.
Genotype-first detection would mean screening healthy children to detect high-risk childhood cancer-causing alterations before the primary cancer occurs. The exploration of the academic, economic, logistical and ethical possibilities and challenges of a genotype-first approach is a key interest of my current research.
