dr. Lore Lapeire (MD, PhD)

CRIG member
Lore Lapeire


Postdoctoral researcher - Lab for Experimental Cancer Research (Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, UGent) (PI: prof. An Hendrix)
Medical Oncologist - Department of Medical Oncology (UZ Gent)

 

Research focus

Our research group is dedicated to sarcoma research. The focus is twofold: surgical and non-surgical. The surgical research line focuses on ameliorating the outcome after limb salvage surgery including tumor resection and reconstruction of the bone defect. The reconstruction can be performed either in a biological (bone grafts) or a non-biological (reconstruction prosthesis) way. Each technique has its indications, best practices and pitfalls. Improving the patient’s function and avoiding complications and re-operations by optimising surgical techniques are important in the clinical setting. The non-surgical research line is divided in two parts. One part involves the exploration of the role of extracellular vesicles (EVs) in the development of lung metastases in sarcoma patients. EVs are released by different cell types including cancer cells. They play a role in the progression of cancer by exchanging 'messages' from cancer cells to target cells locally and at a distance via the bloodstream. The role of EVs in the progression of sarcoma patients and more specifically the formation of lung metastases is largely unravelled. The other part of our non-surgical research line is focused on further elaboration of our in-house developed chick chorio-allantoic membrane assay (CAM-assay) to develop a faithful and representative preclinical sarcoma model to test standard and experimental compounds. For this, we will perform a co-clinical trial with accepted (but time-consuming) models in literature such as patient-derived (orthotopic) xenografts (PD(o)X) to validate our CAM-assay to deliver relevant therapeutic answers in a time window of 14 days and provide a quick access to effective treatments.
 

Biography

  • 1997-2005: Master in Medicine, graduated magna cum laude at Ghent University.
  • 2005-2008: Doctor in training in Internal Medicine.
  • 2009-2015: PhD at the department of Medical Oncology with grant of ‘Bijzonder Onderzoeksfonds’ of Ghent University, Title: ‘When the fat (lady) starts to sing: the role of adipose tissue secreted factors in breast cancer progression.’ Date of dissertation: 10th of November 2015.
  • 2014-current: Medical Oncologist at department of Medical Oncology, University Hospital, Gent.
  • Member of BSMO, ESMO and EMSOS.
  • Founder of Care4AYA vzw, a non-profit organisation that focuses on improving cancer care in youngsters (adolescents and young adults = AYA)

 

Key publications

  • Cancer-associated adipose tissue promotes breast cancer progression by paracrine oncostatin M and Jak/STAT3 signaling. Cancer Research, 2014. (PMID:25252914)
  • Secretome analysis of breast cancer-associated adipose tissue to identify paracrine regulators of breast cancer growth. Oncotarget, 2017. (PMID: 28525384)
  • The isolation of morphologically intact and biologically active extracellular vesicles from the secretome of cancer-associated adipose tissue. Cell Adhesion And Migration, 2017. (PMID: 28146372)
  • The in ovo CAM-assay as a xenograft model for sarcoma. Journal of Visualized Experiments, 2013. (PMID: 23892612)

 

Contact & links