Faye Naessens
Doctoral fellow – Cell Death Investigation and Therapy (CDIT) Laboratory, Department of Human Structure and Repair, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, UGent
Principal investigator: prof. Dmitri Krysko (MD, PhD)
Research focus
The immunogenicity of dying neoplastic cells has recently been recognized as a critical determinant of efficacy in cancer therapy. Anti-cancer therapy is more successful when an immunogenic form of cell death is induced, which in turn can activate an immune response specific to cancer cells. In this regard, immunogenic cell death (ICD) is a novel exploitable paradigm for anti-cancer therapy. ICD combines the ability to both kill cancer cells and simultaneously activate anti-tumor immunity. Particularly important in the operation of ICD is the well-balanced load of the recognition of antigenic structures (antigenicity) and the spatiotemporal emission of immune-modulatory mediators (adjuvanticity), including the emission of damage-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs, such as ATP, HMGB1, calreticulin) and/or various pro-inflammatory cytokines/chemokines from the dying cancer cells.
The tumor microenvironment (TME) consists of a heterogeneous set of ostensibly normal cells that may positively or negatively affect the outcome of ICD. The aim of my project is to further explore the immune-modulatory role of ICD-induced cancer cells, and to gain detailed insights into the reciprocal interaction between ICD and the TME in vitro and in vivo.
Biography
- Faye obtained a Master of Science in Biomedical Sciences with greatest distinction (summa cum laude) in 2022 at the University of Ghent, Belgium. During the master, she was selected for a scholarship under the Flemish funding program ‘Generic Scholarships’ for her exchange to the Lobachevsky State University of Nizhniy Novgorod (RU).
- In October 2022, she started a Ph.D. in the Cell Death Investigation and Therapy Laboratory (Ghent, Belgium) under the supervision of Prof. Dmitri Krysko. For her Ph.D., she received the Special Research Fund (BOF) Ph.D. scholarship.
Key publications
- Immunogenic ferroptosis and where to find it?. Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer, 2021. (PMID: 34903554)
Contact & links
- Lab address: Corneel Heymanslaan 10, entrance 46, 4B3, 9000 Ghent, Belgium
- Faye Naessens is interested to receive invitations for presentations or talks