# René Bernards

Source: https://onco.cc/people/rene-bernards/  
OnCo record `rene-bernards` (Person). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

Cancer geneticist who explained why BRAF inhibitors fail in colorectal cancer, leading to the BEACON combination.

## Summary

René Bernards is Senior Group Leader at the Netherlands Cancer Institute (NKI-AvL) and Professor at Utrecht University. His specialisms are cancer genetics, drug resistance and functional genomics, with a focus on BRAF and EGFR. His functional genetic screens identified feedback activation of EGFR as the reason BRAF inhibitors fail in colorectal cancer, reported in Nature, and this finding is the rationale behind the encorafenib plus cetuximab combination tested in BEACON. He also co-founded Agendia and developed MammaPrint, the 70-gene signature used in hormone receptor-positive breast cancer. His publications are listed on PubMed.

## Fields

- Kind: Person
- Last checked: 2026-09-08
- Role: Senior Group Leader, Netherlands Cancer Institute; Professor, Utrecht University
- Specialisms: Cancer genetics; Drug resistance; Functional genomics

## Sources

- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Bernards
- PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=Bernards%20R%5BAuthor%5D%20BRAF%20colorectal%20EGFR

## Connected records

- cancers: [Colorectal cancer](https://onco.cc/cancers/colorectal/), [HR-positive / HER2-negative breast cancer](https://onco.cc/cancers/breast-hr-positive/)
- targets: [BRAF](https://onco.cc/targets/braf/), [EGFR](https://onco.cc/targets/egfr/)
- drugs: [Encorafenib](https://onco.cc/drugs/encorafenib/), [MammaPrint (70-gene signature)](https://onco.cc/drugs/mammaprint/)
- institutions: [Netherlands Cancer Institute (NKI-AvL)](https://onco.cc/institutions/nki/)

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JSON: https://onco.cc/api/v1/entities/rene-bernards.json