Lioe-Fee de Geus-Oei (1971) is a Professor of Radiology, in particular Nuclear Medicine, at the LUMC, where she became Head of Research at the new PET centre, chairwoman of the Education Management Team, and a member of the Radiology Management Team. In addition, she is a part-time clinical Professor of Molecular Imaging, Innovation and Translation at the University of Twente (0.2 fte) and Principal Investigator in several projects at Radboudumc (0.1 fte). She is also on the Executive Board of the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) Imaging Group in Brussels and on the Oncology Committee of the European Association of Nuclear Medicine (EANM) in Vienna.

More information about Lioe-Fee de Geus-Oei

Lioe-Fee de Geus-Oei (1971) is a Professor of Radiology, in particular Nuclear Medicine, at the LUMC, where she became Head of Research at the new PET centre, chairwoman of the Education Management Team, and a member of the Radiology Management Team. In addition, she is a part-time clinical Professor of Molecular Imaging, Innovation and Translation at the University of Twente (0.2 fte) and Principal Investigator in several projects at Radboudumc (0.1 fte). She is also on the Executive Board of the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) Imaging Group in Brussels and on the Oncology Committee of the European Association of Nuclear Medicine (EANM) in Vienna.

Chair in Radiology, in particular Nuclear Medicine

Positron Emission Tomography (PET) plays a key role in Lioe-Fee’s work. PET is an imaging technique that allows us to visualise tumours. In the context of personalised medicine, this technique can give us highly valuable information. Using radioactively labelled sugar, for instance, PET can visualise those cells that use a lot of glucose (sugar). As cancer cells need a lot of sugar, this can help to distinguish tumour tissue from healthy tissue. PET also allows the imaging of other biological and molecular properties of many other disease processes, such as cardiovascular diseases, neurological disorders, and infectious diseases.

Social relevance of the chair: sustainable and affordable care

Healthcare is under increasing pressure. If we do not manage to curb costs, we are facing the nightmare scenario of spending 25% of GDP on healthcare by 2030. This, of course, is a terrifying prospect, and the University Medical Centres have the social duty to develop innovations that will serve to deal with this predicament. ‘If we want to continue to offer quality care, it needs to be both affordable and sustainable’, De Geus-Oei observed in her inaugural lecture. She also detailed how her profession can make a contribution here. ‘We have arrived at a watershed moment in how we conceive and configure our healthcare system. We must organize the healthcare system on a different footing: to provide care only where it is needed and to deliver more specific, smarter, and more tailor-made care solutions. Two topics from the national research agenda take pride of place here: personalised medicine and Big Data. Personalised medicine means that the individual patient receives a therapy that the best suited to him/her as a person and to the disease particulars, for instance, certain tumour characteristics. To understand why disease progressions may differ in different individuals, it helps to gather many data, such as genetic, biochemical, biological, and molecular disease properties. These are called Big Data. PET can produce very valuable information on these matters’, says De Geus-Oei.

For the future, she foresees wide-ranging PET applications. Expensive medicines, for example, might be labelled, making them traceable in the body and showing physicians whether they have arrived at the right place in the right dosage. This will also prevent medicines from being provided to patients that will not benefit from them, avoiding many unnecessary side-effects to patients and huge costs to society.

Her line of research can be subdivided into five topics (see her inaugural lecture for further information):

1. Tissue Characterization
2. Pharmacokinetics of Therapies
3. Therapy Response Evaluation
4. Image-Guided Decisions
5. Radionuclide Therapy

Academic career

Lioe-Fee de Geus-Oei was a medical student in Rotterdam (1990-1996) before she proceeded to train as a nuclear physician at the LUMC and Radboudumc (1997-2001). She was a Nuclear Medicine member of staff at the Radboudumc (2001-2014), deputy educator (2008-2011) and chief Nuclear Medicine educator (2011-2014). On 19 November 2007, she obtained her doctorate with a thesis entitled Characterization of Malignancy with FDG-PET at Radboud University. After her transfer to the LUMC in 2015, she retained an 0.1 fte position at Radboudumc.

On 1 December 2013 she was appointed clinical Professor of Molecular Imaging, Innovation, and Translation (0.2 fte) at the Science and Technology Faculty of the University of Twente, a chair she has combined with her chair in Leiden since 2015. On 30 October 2014, she delivered her first inaugural lecture, entitled De toekomst van de beeldvorming uitgestippeld? (Outlining the Future of Imaging?). The University of Twente offers a Technical Medicine programme. Lioe-Fee teaches students of Medicine and Technical Medicine and has supervised many graduation projects. She was the chief educator of the first Technical Medicine Fellow, and she supervised the very first Technical Medicine PhD student, who has obtained a doctorate in 2011.

On 1 January 2015, Lioe-Fee was appointed Professor of Radiology, in particular Nuclear Medicine, at the LUMC, where she became Head of Research at the new PET centre, chairwoman of the Education MT, and a member of the Radiology and Research MTs. She then delivered her second inaugural address, entitled PET: Tool of Wonder and Limitless Imagination, on 19 December 2016.

Lioe-Fee specialises in tumour imaging and characterisation with the aid of FDG PET/CT, and in advanced Positron Emission Tomography (PET) quantification techniques. In her capacity as PhD supervisor, she has successfully completed 10 PhD projects and is currently supervising 13      PhD students at Radboudumc, the University of Twente, and Leiden University.

In addition to her main work, Lioe-Fee has always taken on many subsidiary positions. Since 2017, she has been a member of the Oncology Committee of the European Association of Nuclear Medicine (EANM) in Vienna. Since 2016, she has been on the Executive Board of the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) Imaging Group in Brussels. She has been on the editorial council of Oncologie up to date since 2016 and the advisory council of the Tijdschrift voor Nucleaire Geneeskunde since 2013. Since 2017, she has been Senior Editorial Board Member of the Journal of Thoracic Disease, and, since 2013, of the American Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging. Since 2017, she has been a Member of the Scientific Advisory Board of Cyclotron BV at VUMC. Since 2012, she has been a member of the Scientific Council of the Dutch GIST Registry.

In the past, she served as editor (2004-2007) and editor-in-chief (2007-2011) of the Tijdschrift voor Nucleaire Geneeskunde, as a member of the European Association of Nuclear Medicine (EANM) Young Investigators Committee (2009), and as board member (2012-2017) and chairwoman (2013-2017) of the Dutch Society of Nuclear Medicine. 

Honours and Awards

1. Award for Outstanding Performance, European Medical Students’ Association International Scientific Symposium, Prague, Czech Republic (1994)
2. Marie Curie Young Investigator Congress Grant, European Association of Nuclear Medicine, Copenhagen, Denmark (2007)
3. EANM Young Investigator of the Year Award (2009),
4. Selected to participate in the ‘Female career development program for female top talent’ at Radboudumc (2009-2010)
5. Invited Highlights Lecturer at the European Association of Nuclear Medicine Congress (EANM), Birmingham, UK (2011)
6. Mother of two wonderful daughters (2001 and 2004)

Grants and other funding

1. 2017 Principal Investigator: NWO-ZonMW research grant: HOlmium radioembolization as adjuvant treatment to Radiofrequency Ablation for Early STage Hepatocellular carcinoma (HORA EST HCC): a phase I dose-finding study
2. 2017 Co-Principal Investigator: The neurochemical basis of goal-directed behavior. Funding Body FSW Leiden University
3. 2016 Work Package Leader: Horizon2020 grant: PAMMOTH: Photoacoustic Mammography beyond the Horizon’
4. 2016 GE research grant: Quantitative SPECT/CT studies for therapy monitoring and therapy guidance in patients with locally advanced breast cancer
5. 2015 Consortium Team Member STW-Perspectief programma: P14-19: Radiomics - Non-invasive STRatification of Tissue heterogeneity for personalized medicine – Radiomics STRaTegy
6. 2015 Philips research grant: Radiomics in Osteosarcoma
7. 2015 Siemens research grant: Addition of gated CT to HD-Chest based PET respiratory gating
8. 2015 Grant Rivierduinen GGZ Leiden: Dopaminerg functioneren bij autisme
9. 2014 Principal Investigator: KWF-grant: Efficacy of FDG-PET in the Evaluation of Cytological Indeterminate Thyroid nodules prior to surgery (EfFECTS): a multicentre cost-effectiveness study
10. 2013 Co-applicant: Repetitive 4D-FDG-PET/CT imaging in advanced stage NSCLC patients undergoing individually escalated (chemo) radiotherapy. Funding Body RUNMC Research Institute for Oncology Junior investigators grant
11. 2012 Principal investigator: 4D-training: Op weg naar Doelmatigheid in Diagnostiek in een Didactische Digitale samenwerkingsomgeving. Funding body: UMCN Resident Medical Education Innovation Fund
12. 2010 Principal Investigator: MIBG scan and Strain Echocardiography in the detection of subclinical cardiovascular effects after (neo)adjuvant breast cancer treatment. Funded by Cephalon; Merck Sharp & Dohme; Sanofi-Aventis; GE Healthcare

Publications