Nikolaos Nikolaidis
PhD student – Lab of Nico Callewaert, Center for Medical Biotechnology – VIB-UGent (Faculty of Science)
Principal investigator: prof. Nico Callewaert (PhD)
Research focus
One of the characteristics of virtually all (adeno)carcinomas is the altered glycosylation of their extracelullar plasma membrane proteins. Due to these alterations, they can escape the immune system, apoptotic signals, adopt a metastatic phenotype owning to reduced cell adhesion, and many more. This aberrant glycosylation can be exploited to differentiate cancer from healthy cells, making the altered glycans a possible target for immunotherapy.
The ultimate goal of our project is to find and localize specific altered glycans on tumor cells. In this way, antibodies can be developed that recognize both the cancer-specific glycan and amino acid backbone of the protein on which it resides. These combinatory epitopes are called glycopeptide epitopes. There are currently not many tumor specific epitopes known for solid tumors, so these glycopeptide epitopes could be new, very potent targets for immunotherapeutics.
With this project, we want to develop a mass spectrometry-based technique that allows us to localize, identify and quantify specific cancer-related glycans on their plasma membrane proteins in one single run. The current state of the art mass spectrometry-based glycan analytics allows only for localization OR identification, but never the combination of both. We hope to overcome this bottleneck and develop a platform that detects the promising glycopeptide epitopes of (adeno)carcinomas and allows a plug-and-play approach to developing immunotherapeutics against them.
Biography
- Masters Degree in Pharmacy – School of Pharmacy, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece - 2017-2022
Contact & links
- Lab address: VIB Medical Biotechnology Center, Technologiepark-Zwijnaarde 75, 9052 Gent, Belgium
- Nikolaos Nikolaidis is interested to receive invitations for talks or presentations