Lambrechts Lab

Our work is currently focused on two main research topics in the field of cancer genomics.

1. Characterization how the tumor microenvironment (TME) determines tumor behavior and response to response to anti-angiogenic and checkpoint immunotherapies, which are both frequently used in the clinic (alone or in combination). This exciting line of research bears a lot of translational potential, as managing the levels of hypoxia in solid tumors by anti-angiogenic strategies represents a major yet incompletely understood challenge, while the field of immunotherapy is rapidly expanding - yet desperately in need of biomarkers predicting clinical response. We are using the newest single-cell profiling technologies to study these tumor micro-environments at the greatest detail (before, during treatment and at resistance).
2. The use of plasma cell-free DNA (cfDNA) as a diagnostic test to characterize and monitor tumors non-invasively. Specifically, we are optimizing methods to reliably detect somatic mutations, copy number changes, but also changes in DNA methylation and nucleosome positions in cfDNA from cancer patients