I am a hematopathologist at the University Medical Center Groningen and a principal investigator in the SALL (stem cells, aging, leukemia and lymphoma) program of the CRCG (Cancer Research Center Groningen). My main research interest involves malignant lymphoma, in particular Hodgkin lymphoma, with a strong focus on interactions between tumor cells and the microenvironment. In my PhD thesis "Classical Hodgkin lymphoma: population based studies on HLA and EBV (2007)" and follow-up studies, I discovered that the HLA system is intricately involved in Hodgkin lymphoma susceptibility, pathogenesis and prognosis and published these findings in the Lancet, Journal of Clinical Oncology and Blood. I secured three Dutch Cancer Society grants to do functional follow-up studies on these findings. Fruitful international collaborations involve the Interlymph consortium on genome wide association studies, the Lymphoma group of the EORTC and various groups in the UK, Canada and the US. My areas of expertise are: immunology, tumor cell biology, association studies and molecular diagnostics in pathology.