Eden Pappaert
Doctoral fellow – Lab computational cancer genomics and tumor evolution (Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Ghent University)
Principal investigator: prof. Jimmy Van den Eynden (MD, PhD)
Research focus
Cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (cSCC) is the second most frequent skin cancer and prevalence is increasing worldwide. The majority of these skin tumors develop from actinic keratosis, a common precancerous skin lesion. Both cSCC and actinic keratosis mainly occur in the ultraviolet (UV) exposed, aged skin and recent studies demonstrated a similar genomic profile, characterized by somatic mutations in cancer genes such as TP53 and NOTCH1. Interestingly, these mutations have also been shown to drive microclone formation in UV-exposed, aged histologically normal epidermal skin.
My PhD research aims to identify the genomic factors that underly the progression from normal skin into premalignant actinic keratosis and eventually cSCC. I’m specifically focusing on the role of mutant clonal competition by applying a plethora of spatial omics approaches on human tissues derived from whole-body donors and skin cancer patients.
Biography
- Master of Science in Biomedical Sciences at Ghent University (2022-2024)
- Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Sciences at Ghent University (2019-2022)
Contact & links
- Lab address: Department of Human Structure and Repair, Unit of Anatomy and Embryology, Corneel Heymanslaan 10, UZP123, 9000 Ghent, Belgium
- Computational Cancer Genomics and Tumor Evolution lab
- LinkedIn