Jan Paul Medema studied Chemistry in Leiden, the Netherlands, graduating in 1991 with a specialisation in biochemistry and medical biochemistry. He continued his training under the guidance of Professor Hans Bos at the Univeristy of Utrecht and received his PhD in 1996 on the topic of the oncoprotein p21Ras. He then went on to study the role of programmed cell death in tumor biology and immunology in order to understand the basic concepts of cell death signalling and the way these are perturbed in cancer. He unravelled several modes of cell death escape, specifically in the face of a cytotoxic immune response.

Later, his work moved into the direction of cancer heterogeneity and its role in cell death resistance, tumor growth and therapy response, centering around the role of cancer stem cells in these processes, as well as the role of inter-patient heterogeneity in the aggressiveness of tumors. Currently, Professor Medema is the Head of the Laboratory of Experimental Oncology and Radiobiology (LEXOR) in the Academic Medical Center of the University of Amsterdam, which has developed several research lines focusing on the mechanisms of survival/cell death resistance of tumor cells against therapeutic interventions.