Maude Jans is laureate of the 3rd Pieter Van Vlierberghe Award for best paper in oncology

Each year, CRIG launches the 'Pieter Van Vlierberghe Award', a yearly award for the best paper in oncology published by young CRIG researchers. 

This initiative is taken to honor and remember CRIG group leader Prof. Pieter Van Vlierberghe, who lost his unfair battle against cancer in 2022 (in memoriam Pieter Van Vlierberghe). Pieter has been one of the driving forces of cancer research in Ghent, made great contributions in the field of (pediatric) leukemia and lymphoma, embodied the mission of CRIG to collaborate, and was an excellent leader, motivator and friend to many of us.

In 2025, the third ‘Pieter Van Vlierberghe Award’ was given to CRIG researcher Maude Jans for her paper ‘Colibactin-driven colon cancer requires adhesin-mediated epithelial binding’ (published in Nature, 2024 - link to the publication), providing important mechanistic insights in how specific bacteria can contribute to colorectal cancer (CRC) development. Furthermore, this study provides novel therapeutic opportunities (for example via the development of anti-adhesive therapies aimed at mitigating colibactin-induced DNA damage and inhibiting the initiation and progression of CRC). 

To help disseminating these research results to a broad audience, the teams also made an animation video that was financially supported by CRIG.

Laureate Maude Jans was awarded during a dedicated closing session on CRIG’s OncoPoint symposium on 31 March 2025, in the presence of >200 CRIG researchers and Prof. Van Vlierberghe’s family members.