Oliver Van Oekelen

Oliver Van Oekelen is a medical doctor (MD), trained in bioinformatics, with a degree from the University of Leuven (KU Leuven), Belgium. He has completed the first two years of (internal medicine) residency in Belgium, after which he joined the PhD in Biomedical Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in 2018. 

During his PhD, Oliver will try to use bioinformatics tools to study multiple myeloma, a haematological malignancy, in the lab of Dr. Samir Parekh. He focuses on the role of non-tumor cells (e.g. the immune cell repertoire) in the development of disease, in disease progression/relapse and after treatment. Using next generation sequencing at the single-cell level and mass cytometry, Oliver hopes to clarify the intricate crosstalk between various cell types in the bone marrow microenvironment.

Oliver conducts his research in close collaboration with the physicians at the Center of Excellence for Multiple Myeloma and with Dr. Alessandro Laganà, who acts as co-mentor to his PhD project. 

Oliver has a broad interest in transitional biomedical research in immunology and oncology with a focus on bioinformatics and medical informatics approaches.