PhD Positions in Metabolism & Cancer, VIB Vesalius Research Center Belgium, Belgium (2015)

The Laboratory of Angiogenesis and Neurovascular link, headed by Prof. Peter Carmeliet, is looking for highly motivated, creative and enthusiastic PhD students to join their team of international researchers.

The focus of the lab is to characterize the regulation of cell metabolism and to determine the role of metabolism during the process of angiogenesis. Angiogenesis, the growth of new blood vessels, plays a crucial role in numerous diseases, including cancer. Inhibiting the formation of vessels within the tumor (anti-angiogenic therapy) has emerged as a promising anti-cancer strategy. Clinically approved anti-angiogenic drugs offered prolonged survival to numerous cancer patients. Unfortunately, monotherapy with the current available anti-angiogenic agents often results in the development of treatment resistance. Thus, novel strategies are needed to block tumor angiogenesis via alternative mechanisms. The tight interaction between blood vessels that provide metabolic substrates, and the tumor cells that utilize them, leads to the obvious link between metabolism and angiogenesis, surprisingly this has not been studied so far. Recent studies from the lab revealed that targeting endothelial metabolism could be a possible alternative therapeutic strategy for anti-angiogenic therapy. In this perspective, we are aiming to investigate several metabolic pathways in different models of angiogenesis.

Successful candidates will be involved in this research project, under the direct supervision of Prof. Carmeliet and motivated postdoctoral fellows. Working in the team of Prof. Carmeliet will offer the candidate the opportunity to acquire experience in molecular and cellular biology, transgenesis, in vivo animal models and state-of-the-art research tools including: Metabolic Flux Analysis (MFA) and metabolomics (incl. GC- and LC-mass spectrometry).

Further details:
http://www.nature.com