{"id":35592,"date":"2025-06-27T15:01:42","date_gmt":"2025-06-27T19:01:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cancerresearch.org\/?post_type=cri_scientists&#038;p=35592"},"modified":"2025-11-19T23:27:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T04:27:16","slug":"tara-muijlwijk-phd","status":"publish","type":"cri_scientists","link":"https:\/\/www.cancerresearch.org\/es\/cri-funded-scientists\/tara-muijlwijk-phd","title":{"rendered":"Tara Muijlwijk, PhD"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Melanoma is an aggressive form of skin cancer that can become life-threatening when it spreads, or metastasizes, to other parts of the body. While immunotherapy has improved outcomes for some patients, many still fail to respond. Dr. Tara Muijlwijk is investigating how melanoma spreads to the lymph nodes and how the immune system\u2019s response within these sites may actually support cancer progression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The lymph nodes are small immune hubs designed to detect and respond to threats like cancer. However, tumors can co-opt their function to avoid immune attack. Using advanced imaging and molecular tools, Dr. Muijlwijk will map interactions between immune and tumor cells in these metastatic environments. \u201cBy uncovering these processes, we hope to identify new strategies to block melanoma spread and improve the effectiveness of immunotherapy,\u201d she explains. Her research could also offer insights into other cancers that metastasize to the lymph nodes, including breast and head and neck cancers. Dr. Muijlwijk is a translational immuno-oncology researcher with expertise in tumor heterogeneity and immune regulation. Her early work explored genetic diversity in gastrointestinal cancers and immune suppression in sentinel lymph nodes. During her PhD, she characterized a distinct subclass of head and neck cancer with few copy number alterations (a specific type of genetic mutation) and studied how immune landscapes vary across tumor sites. She now investigates tumor-immune interactions in melanoma, combining human specimen analysis with mechanistic studies to inform next-generation immunotherapies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Sponsor<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Amanda Lund, PhD<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Research Focus<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Melanoma, lymph node metastasis, cancer-immune cell interactions<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Projects and Grants<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Defining tumor and immune co-evolution in cutaneous melanoma lymph node metastasis<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Melanoma is an aggressive form of skin cancer that can become life-threatening when it spreads, or metastasizes, to other parts of the body. While immunotherapy has improved outcomes for some patients, many [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":35519,"template":"","tax_cancer_type":[354],"tax_grant_type":[861],"tax_award_year":[742],"tax_institutions":[628],"tax_location_states":[494],"class_list":["post-35592","cri_scientists","type-cri_scientists","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":{"scientist_subhead":"CRI Dr. Keith Landesman Memorial Fellow","quote":"","scientist_last_name":"Muijlwijk","show_on_landing":true,"scientist_publish_until":"20280629"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Tara Muijlwijk, PhD - Cancer Research Institute<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Dr. Muijlwijk is investigating how melanoma spreads to the lymph nodes and how the immune system\u2019s response may support cancer progression.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cancerresearch.org\/cri-funded-scientists\/tara-muijlwijk-phd\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"es_ES\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Tara Muijlwijk, PhD - 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