prof. Kris Gevaert (PhD)

Proteins are central to virtually every cellular process and their dysregulation is a hallmark of cancer. Our lab is dedicated to advancing cancer research through in-depth proteomic analysis; studying the full complement of proteins (the proteome) within cells.

We develop and apply cutting-edge technologies to comprehensively analyze and quantify proteomes, with a particular emphasis on post-translational modifications such as proteolytic processing. A key area of interest is the characterization of N-terminal proteoforms, which arise from alternative translation initiation events and other mechanisms. These proteoforms often hold clues to previously unrecognized regulatory layers in protein function. Using high-end mass spectrometers, we identify proteins with altered expression across different biological conditions, enabling the discovery of potential biomarkers. Recently, we have expanded our focus to extracellular vesicles released by cells. We have developed a novel, high-throughput method to enrich these vesicles from liquid biopsies, paving the way for non-invasive proteomic profiling. To understand protein function in context, we employ both classical and next-generation affinity purification-mass spectrometry (AP-MS) techniques to map protein complexes, which are the functional units of most proteins. Looking ahead, we are implementing low-input and single-cell proteomics workflows, and integrating these with deep visual proteomics to gain spatially resolved insights into protein expression and function at unprecedented resolution.
 

• prof. Kris Gevaert (PhD) - group leader, senior full professor
• dr. Maria Esperanza Fernandez Fernandez (PhD) – post-doctoral researcher
• dr. Marcel Bühler (PhD) - post-doctoral researcher
• dr. Andrea Argentini (PhD) - post-doctoral researcher
• dr. Jarne Pauwels (PhD) - post-doctoral researcher
• Chloé Van Leene - doctoral fellow
• Sam Calis - doctoral fellow
• Emin Araftpoor - doctoral fellow
• Areti Georgiadi - doctoral fellow
   

• 'Limited Evidence for Protein Products of Noncoding Transcripts in the HEK293T Cellular Cytosol'. Mol Cell Proteomics, 2022. (PMID: 35788065)
• 'Filter-Aided Extracellular Vesicle Enrichment (FAEVEr) for Proteomics'. MCP, vol. 24, 2025.
• 'A 96-Well Ultrafiltration Approach for the High-Throughput Proteome Analysis of Extracellular Vesicles Isolated From Conditioned Medium'. ISEV, 2025.
• 'Mass spectrometry and the cellular surfaceome'. Mass Spectrom Rev, 2021. (PMID: 33655572)
• 'Prune-1 drives polarization of tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) within the lung metastatic niche in triple-negative breast cancer'. IScience, 2020. (PMID: 33426510)
• 'An AKT2-specific nanobody that targets the hydrophobic motif induces cell cycle arrest, autophagy and loss of focal adhesions in MDA-MB-231 cells'. Biomed Pharmacother, 2020. (PMID: 33378961)
• 'Integrator restrains paraspeckles assembly by promoting isoform switching of the lncRNA NEAT1'. Sci. Adv., 2020. (PMID: 32923585)
• 'N-Terminal Proteoforms in Human Disease'. Trends Biochem Sci., 2020. (PMID: 32001092)
• 'A Well-Controlled BioID Design for Endogenous Bait Proteins'. J. Proteome Res, 2019. (PMID: 30525648)
• 'Mutations in LZTR1 drive human disease by dysregulating RAS ubiquitination'. Science, 2018. (PMID: 30442762)
   

• Technologiepark-Zwijnaarde 75, B9052 Ghent, Belgium
• VIB-UGent Center for Medical Biotechnology
• Department of Biomolecular Medicine, UGent
• Gevaert lab
• VIB Proteomics Core
• X (former Twitter)