News

Congratulations to Silvia Rivis for successfully defending her PhD thesis on "IP6K3 enables metabolic adaptation of renal cancer cells during metastatic outgrowth". Well done Dr Rivis!

Tommaso Scolaro successfully defended his doctoral thesis on "Harnessing pyrimidine metabolism to overcome immunosuppression in pancreatic cancer". Congrats Dr Scolaro!

New research - led by Prof M. Mazzone - has identified the enzyme glutamate dehydrogenase 1 (GLUD1) as a new therapeutic target for Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). In preclinical DMD mouse models, investigators demonstrated that inhibiting GLUD1 significantly enhances muscle strength and coordination, signaling a potential shift towards restoring muscle function rather than just managing symptoms. The groundbreaking study in The American Journal of Pathology, published by Elsevier, points towards a promising and feasible pathway to treat DMD based on muscle glutamate exploitation, addressing a clinically unmet need. Read more

Lever Bio Announces a €4 Million Financing Round and a Strategic Partnership with VIB to Advance Four Novel Immuno-Oncology Assets. Lever Bio - a newly established biotech company pioneering innovation in immuno-oncology - announces a €4 million financing round led by Claris Ventures and a strategic partnership with VIB - a leading life sciences research institute in Belgium - securing access to VIB’s key intellectual property (IP) to further develop and finance four novel VHH antibody-based therapies. The collaboration exploits the expertise of Professor Massimiliano Mazzone, an internationally recognized leader in tumor immunology and immuno-metabolism, and his team at the VIB-KU Leuven Center for Cancer Biology. Read more

The Mazzone lab obtained an ERC Proof of Concept grant for the project “Overcoming PAncreatic cancer immunotherapy resistance: developing PYRimidine receptor antagonists” (PA-PYR-us)

The Mazzone lab obtained a 4-year research grant from the Foundation Against Cancer, for the project "Epigenetic regulation as a main instructor guiding tumor-associated macrophage phenotypes: can we revert the trend?", and a 4-year research grant from FWO for the project "Understanding glutamate metabolism in the tumor microenvironment to tackle Immune Checkpoint Blockade (ICB) resistance"

Samantha Pretto succesfully defended her PhD thesis on "A functional single cell metabolic survey identifies Elovl1 as a target to enhance CD8⁺ T cell fitness in solid tumors". Congratulations, Dr Pretto!

Congratulations to Ria Pinioti and Carla Riera Domingo for successfully defending their PhD theses!

Proud to present the work of our PhD student Carla Riera Domingo and the team, on the role that the family of TRAIL proteins in the endothelium plays in metastasis, now published in Science Advances.    Read the press release

Federica Cappellesso successfully defended her PhD thesis on “Targeting the bicarbonate transporter SLC4A4 overcomes immunosuppression and immunotherapy resistance in pancreatic cancer”. Congratulations Dr Cappellesso!

Very proud of our publication in Nature Cancer on "Targeting acidity: a new approach to tackle pancreatic cancer", with Federica Cappellesso as first author. Read more
Our story was also picked up by the national news (in Dutch) on VRT and Het Nieuwsblad

Max was co-organizer of the VIB Conference "Recent insights into Immuno-Oncology" in Leuven - read more

Together with J. Swinnen (KU Leuven - promotor), C. Scott (UGent), J. Van Ginderachter (VUB) and J. Hendriks (UHasselt), Max Mazzone obtained FWO-SBO/E funding for the project 'LipoMacs: functional Lipidomics to unlock Macrophage-mediated therapy'

Ward Celus successfully defended his doctoral thesis. Congratz Dr Celus!

Max Mazzone obtained an ERC Proof-of-Concept grant to investigate how metabolic editing of the TME can change immunosuppression and overcome resistance to immunotherapy in pancreatic cancer - Read more

Together with J. Van Ginderachter, P. Close and F. Fuks, Max Mazzone obtained an EOS grant for 4 years.

VIB and KU Leuven scientists led by professor Massimiliano Mazzone have identified a novel target for immunotherapy in recalcitrant tumors. This target could also become a valuable biomarker since it can predict tumor response to immunotherapy in metastatic melanoma patients. These findings may improve existing therapeutic regimes and, at the same time, help to select those cancer patients that will most likely benefit from immunotherapy. These exploratory studies are reported today in Cancer Immunology Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. Read more - Publication

PhD student Tommaso Scolaro obtained an FWO PhD Fellowship in fundamental Research, while Marie-Pauline Orban received a Kom Op Tegen Kanker -Emmanuel van der Schueren starting grant. Congrats to both!

VIB Spin off, Montis Biosciences, was awarded a VLAIO Grant to Expand its Pipeline of Novel Immune-Oncology Therapeutics. Read more

Max Mazzone was elected EMBO Member. The organization EMBO unites leading researchers in the life sciences. Each year, new members are selected from among Europe’s top scientists. EMBO membership is one of the most highly prized recognitions of excellence in the life sciences for individual researchers. This year, Prof. Massimiliano Mazzone (VIB-KU Leuven Center for Cancer Biology) joins the other VIB EMBO members.  Read more

Federico Virga successfully defended his PhD thesis -  a joint PhD at KU Leuven and University of Turin. Also Chiara Varamo obtained her PhD degree at the University of Turin. Congratulations!

The Mazzone Lab received a 4-year research grant from the Foundation against Cancer for the project ‘Arachidonic acid metabolism, a cross point between "bad" and "good" macrophages in cancer: a novel therapeutic perspective?’

Our publication "Macrophage miR-210 induction and metabolic reprogramming in response to pathogen interaction boost life-threatening inflammation" (PubMed) is featured on VRT News

The Mazzone Lab received two 4-year research grants from the FWO, for the projects 'Harnessing the pyrimidine salvaging pathway to foster anti-tumor immunity and sensitize tumors to immune checkpoint blockade' and 'Exploring the role of PlexinA4 in cytotoxic T cells: insights for anti-tumor immune response & cancer immunotherapy'

Min Shang and Pawel Bieniasz-Krzywiec succesfully defended their PhD thesis. Congratulations to both!
Co-supervised PhD students Ana Oliveira and Ricardo Amorim obtained the PhD degree at the Minho University in Portugal. Congrats!

Dr Heleen Van Acker obtained a postdoctoral Fundamental mandate from Stichting tegen Kanker/Foundation Against Cancer

The Mazzone Lab received a 4-year research grant from the FWO, for the SBO project (with a primary economic finality aimed at the transfer to existing companies)'Validation and druggability development of macrophage-specific targets in the tumor microenvironment (MATATUM)' (as co-PI)

Max Mazzone received an ERC Consolidator Grant for the project ImmunoFit: ‘Harnessing tumor metabolism to overcome immunosuppression’

"Zorgmagazine" and EngineeringNet published an article on the lab's research into macrophages and cancer.

The article "Loss of Caveolin-1 in metastasis-associated macrophages drives metastatic growth through increased angiogenesis" in Cell Reports (PubMed) leads to articles on Strandassociates, ScienceDaily,  News Medical, EurekAlert  and MedIndia websites

Multiple articles on our publication "PHD2 targeting overcomes breast cancer cell death upon glucose starvation in a PP2A/B55α-mediated manner" (PubMed) on Medindia,  KU Leuven, VIB

The development of a non-invasive screening test for colon cancer "ColonoKit", together with DNAnalytics,  received a lot of media attention: press releases by
- VIB (Dutch),
- KU Leuven (English & Dutch),
- IUZ Leuven (Dutch)
- De Tijd (Dutch)
- EngineeringNet (Dutch)
- Civico20 (Italian)
- Fondation Fournier Majoie
- Zorgnet (Dutch)
- Nanopdf (French)

Max Mazzone received an ERC Proof-of-Concept Grant for the project: “A comparative clinical study of a stool-based versus a blood-based screening test for early detection of CRC” - Read more

Max Mazzone received the Award of the Foundation AstraZeneca (Oncology) on December 14, 2015

On July 1st, Max Mazzone received the Chiara D’Onofrio Award (Senior category) from the Foundation Chiara D’Onofrio and the Italian Association for Biophysics and Molecular Biology

VIB - KU Leuven did a press release on the article in Nature "MET is required for the recruitment of anti-tumoural neutrophils" and the Italian magazine Topbrain featured an article on how the novel insights in MET proto oncogene might lead to optimizing cancer treatment -  Read more

In December 2014, Max Mazzone received the EMBO Young Investigator Award

Max Mazzone received  the André Vanderstricht-Emile Carpentier Prize of the King Baudouin Foundation (November 11th)