Partners
With the support of an ERC starting grant and a network of national and international experts, the team of Prof. Pierre Sonveaux gained over the last 15 years a high level of internationally recognized expertise in tumor metabolism. Notably, Prof. Sonveaux has been President of the International Society of Cancer Metabolism (ISCaM) from 2016 to 2018. The characterization of glucose metabolism in tumors as an organ led to the identification of a metabolic symbiosis based on the exchange of lactate between glycolytic and oxidative cancer cells, of lactate-induced tumor angiogenesis and, more recently, of a mitochondrial switch that promotes tumor metastasis. With technologies at the state-of-the-art, the team has expertise in molecular biology, biochemistry for the in vitro and in vivo characterization of glucose and lactate metabolism, and the assessment of mtROS-dependent tumor progression. Researches are translational, exploring metabolic responses to conventional anticancer therapies and conceiving new pharmacological approaches modulating treatment efficacy.
The whole scientific career of Prof. Bernard Gallez is built on two pillars: (1) the development of innovative magnetic resonance tools (MRI, MRS, EPR) to characterize the tumor microenvironment (hypoxia, hemodynamics, perfusion, oxygen consumption, angiogenesis, metabolism) and tools to identify free radicals in biological systems; and (2) the application of these tools to manipulate the tumor microenvironment in order to propose and potentiate anticancer treatments, more specifically radiation therapy and treatments targeting tumor metabolism.
Prof. Edmond Sterpin has established a strong expertise in the domain of the modeling of advanced radiotherapy treatment techniques, including rotational radiotherapy and intensity-modulated protontherapy. He is also coordinating the research in Medical Physics for the recent protontherapy center installed in Leuven (the first patient was treated in summer 2020). During the last five years, Edmond Sterpin has led the development of treatment planning strategies for adaptive protontherapy and arc protontherapy. He also co-directed research towards automatic treatment planning tools based on artificial neural network. Finally, another important research area is the development of probabilistic approaches for treatment plan optimization and evaluation in the presence of multiple sources of uncertainties, including biological ones.
Since 2009, Prof. Anne-Catherine Heuskin has been conducting research activities in radiobiology and developing Monte Carlo codes for the prediction of damage and cell fate in the particular context associated to charged particle therapy. Besides cancer treatment-oriented topics, in space radiation research Anne-Catherine Heuskin also participates in the study of model radioresistant organisms and the development of radiation mitigation strategies.
The whole scientific career of Prof. Bernard Gallez is built on two pillars: (1) the development of innovative magnetic resonance tools (MRI, MRS, EPR) to characterize the tumor microenvironment (hypoxia, hemodynamics, perfusion, oxygen consumption, angiogenesis, metabolism) and tools to identify free radicals in biological systems; and (2) the application of these tools to manipulate the tumor microenvironment in order to propose and potentiate anticancer treatments, more specifically radiation therapy and treatments targeting tumor metabolism.
Prof. Edmond Sterpin has established a strong expertise in the domain of the modeling of advanced radiotherapy treatment techniques, including rotational radiotherapy and intensity-modulated protontherapy. He is also coordinating the research in Medical Physics for the recent protontherapy center installed in Leuven (the first patient was treated in summer 2020). During the last five years, Edmond Sterpin has led the development of treatment planning strategies for adaptive protontherapy and arc protontherapy. He also co-directed research towards automatic treatment planning tools based on artificial neural network. Finally, another important research area is the development of probabilistic approaches for treatment plan optimization and evaluation in the presence of multiple sources of uncertainties, including biological ones.
Since 2009, Prof. Anne-Catherine Heuskin has been conducting research activities in radiobiology and developing Monte Carlo codes for the prediction of damage and cell fate in the particular context associated to charged particle therapy. Besides cancer treatment-oriented topics, in space radiation research Anne-Catherine Heuskin also participates in the study of model radioresistant organisms and the development of radiation mitigation strategies.
Pierre Sonveaux |
Bernard Gallez |
Edmond Sterpin |