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The laboratory of Angiogenesis and Vascular Metabolism headed by Prof. Peter Carmeliet is one of the laboratories of the Center for Cancer Biology (CCB), a research department of VIB (Flanders Institute for Biotechnology) located in the Oncology Department at the KU Leuven (Leuven, Belgium).
The lab of Peter Carmeliet recently started a twin lab, the laboratory for Angiogenesis and Vascular Heterogeneity, at the Department of Biomedicine at Aarhus University (Denmark) which is closely intertwined with the lab at the VIB-KU Leuven CCB . Both the Leuven and new Aarhus lab function as one virtual lab, and synergistically combine their joint forces and focus to study similar fundamental questions in vascular biology and angiogenesis, and to develop more efficiently new vascular medicine.
Prof. Carmeliet has an open position for a Postdoctoral fellow in the Leuven and Aarhus lab.
Background project
The research of Prof. Peter Carmeliet focuses on the development of blood vessels (angiogenesis) and vascular heterogeneity in health and disease, with the aim to identify novel therapeutic pro- and anti-angiogenic strategies.
Current anti-angiogenesis therapies (AATs), by targeting the pro-angiogenic factor VEGF, suffer resistance and insufficient efficacy. The Carmeliet lab explores opportunities to overcome these limitations and to improve AAT by focusing on endothelial cell metabolism, endothelial heterogeneity and in particular, endothelial immunity. Recent projects, combining single-cell transcriptomics with bulk multi-omics (transcriptomics, (epi)-genomics, proteomics & metabolomics) revealed novel insights in endothelial cell metabolism and heterogeneity in health and disease that can help design novel AAT strategies.See below for more project details.
Job Description
The lab is looking for a Postdoc to help us to discover new therapeutic targets (using bulk/single cell multi-omics) and to bridge the valley of death (by functionally validating these targets).
You will interact with a dynamic and experienced team of scientists and laboratory technicians. We are looking for dynamic and flexible candidates, willing to step into new adventures, daring to break new grounds outside of their comfort zone, passionate about opportunities to set up new technologies and facilities, not being shy of diving into new fields, being primed and eager to become acquainted with new techniques (e.g., computational programming, artificial intelligence, LNP-technology, etc.).
Key Accountabilities
You will report directly to Prof. Peter Carmeliet.
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The Project
The Carmeliet lab applies their expertise and research focus to evaluate and deliver novel therapeutic concepts into clinical development with the ambition to change the life of patients with vasculature-related disorders. Standard gene modulation strategies (conditional gene targeting/silencing/overexpression) are exploited as well as novel, sophisticated, high-throughput multi-omics approaches (bulk and scRNAseq, scG&T, scATAC, etc.) and computational modelling and biology (artificial intelligence, machine learning), both for hypothesis-generating and hypothesis-testing experiments. For instance, recent successful efforts in generating a single cell transcriptome atlas of endothelial cells (ECs) from various healthy and pathological (including tumor) tissues from preclinical models and clinical patient samples have revealed the existence of previously unknown endothelial cell subtypes, including endothelial cells with a resident endothelial stem cell signature, and endothelial cells with a putative immune-modulatory role (termed IMECs ), key findings being taken into further investigation. In addition, we developed an innovative AI-based tool to predict novel unknow genes in ECs, to develop alternative therapies. Newly AI-identified targets are validated in vitro and in vivo using lipid nanoparticles (LNP) based strategies and novel knock down technologies in mice.
A major challenge of current medical research is to translate the obtained high-profile insights into new medicine. We aspire to not only discover new therapeutic targets, but also to "bridge the valley of death" in order to improve drug development.
How to apply?
Applications for this position should be submitted online and contain:
Full Time
Doctor / Nurse / Paramedics / Hospital Technicians / Medical Research