CANBIO - PhD Training Program

Prof Simone Niclou

Director of Department and CANBIO Coordinator, Group Leader, Supervisor and Co-Supervisor

Prof Niclou is the initiator and coordinator of the CANBIO program. She is Director of the Department of Oncology (DONC) at LIH since 2019. The Department acts as a knowledge hub for cancer research within Luxembourg and is instrumental in the development and execution of world-class research within prioritised areas. It offers a recognised training ground for the next generation of cancer researchers aiming to promote research-driven medical care. 

Prof Niclou leads the NORLUX Neuro-Oncology Laboratory at LIH and is adjunct professor at the University of Bergen in Norway. Trained as a neurobiologist, Prof Niclou has been engaged in brain tumour research since 2005. Her interest is focused on the biology of diffuse gliomas with a special interest in glioma metabolism, tumour heterogeneity and plasticity, angiogenesis and invasion. The lab has established a unique portfolio of patient-based tumour organoids and orthotopic patient-derived xenograft models (PDOX). Prof Niclou’s key motivation is to generate new insight applicable to clinical translation and patient benefit.

Prof Rolf Bjerkvig

Scientific Consultant and CANBIO Supervisor

Prof Rolf Bjerkvig was formerly the Director of the Department of Oncology at LIH (2013 to 2019). He holds the position of Professor of Anatomy and Cell Biology at the University of Bergen, Norway. He was also director of the KG Jebsen Brain Tumour Research Centre at the University of Bergen. His primary interests are the elucidation of the mechanisms of tumour cell migration within the central nervous system and mechanisms of tumour angiogenesis and therapeutic approaches for the prevention of angiogenesis in brain tumours. Prof Bjerkvig has been honoured with numerous international science awards for his research in neuro-oncology.

Dr Guy Berchem

Associated Medical Director and CANBIO Co-Supervisor

Dr Berchem is a medical oncologist who graduated from the Université Libre de Bruxelles in 1990 and subsequently worked at Jules Bordet Institute in Brussels, Belgium, and at the Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Centre, US. He carried out his PhD on the hypoxic stress-regulated NK cell immune response at University Paris-Sud, France. In 2003, he founded the Laboratory of Experimental Cancer Research. He also holds a clinical position at Centre Hospitalier in Luxembourg where he heads the Oncology Platform. His clinical work is focused on lung cancer and neuro-oncology, whereas his laboratory work is on cell death mechanisms in haematology, immune-oncology and personalised medicine. He is president of the Luxembourg National Institute of Cancer, the Luxembourg Society of Oncology and MSF Luxembourg.

Dr Anna Golebiewska

Group Leader and CANBIO Co-Supervisor

Dr Golebiewska is group leader in the NORLUX Neuro-Oncology Laboratory. She has a background in molecular and cellular biology and obtained her PhD in the field of stem cell research.  Her work focuses on understanding brain tumour biology and development of clinically relevant animal models. She is particularly interested in the various aspects of tumour heterogeneity and the cancer stem cell hypothesis. Her current projects aim to tackle intrinsic plasticity allowing brain tumour cells to adapt and survive external pressures from microenvironmental cues and treatment.

Dr Eric Van Dyck

Group Leader, CANBIO Supervisor and Co-Supervisor

Dr Van Dyck is the group leader of the DNA Repair and Chemoresistance research group. Following his PhD, he carried out postdoctoral projects at Stanford University and Cancer Research UK. He also worked as principal investigator at the International Agency for Research on Cancer (WHO). His current research focuses on the molecular mechanisms of DNA repair and chemoresistance in glioblastoma, as well as the epigenetic consequences of the IDH1 mutation. Major contributions include the biochemical dissection of the role of human RAD51 and RAD52 in the recombinational repair of DNA double-strand breaks. He holds collaborations amongst others with researchers from the Beijing Institute of Genomics, China, Oslo University Hospital and University of Bergen, Norway, University of Laval, Québec, and Uniklinik Köln, Germany.

Dr Alessandro Michelucci

Group Leader and CANBIO Supervisor

Dr Michelucci a cellular and molecular biologist, is group leader of the Neuro-Immunology Group focused on glial cells and neuroinflammation in brain disorders, such as brain tumours and neurodegenerative diseases. His current research is focused on studying the molecular mechanisms of glioma microenvironment. Specifically, he investigates the contribution of microglia/macrophages in intrinsic tumour escape mechanisms by analysing their phenotypic and functional adaptation in the tumorigenic process in order to reprogram them to promote anti-tumour activities. In 2014, he received an “FNR Award for Outstanding Scientific Publication” for the discovery of the function of a key gene implicated in the emerging field of immunometabolism.

Dr Bassam Janji

Group Leader and CANBIO Supervisor and Co-Supervisor

Dr Janji is group leader of the Tumor Immunotherapy and Microenvironment research group, which investigates the role of hypoxic tumour microenvironment in the regulation of the anti-tumour immune responses. He obtained his PhD in Oncology from the University of Paris-6 and carried out postdoctoral research at Institut Curie in Paris, France. He joined LIH in 2004 and got an HDR (Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches) from the University of Paris-11 in 2011. Dr. Janji has established a large network of collaborations notably with Gustave Roussy Cancer Campus, Villejuif, France.

Dr Etienne Moussay

Group Leader and CANBIO Co-Supervisor

Dr Moussay leads the research group Tumor Stroma Interactions. He obtained his PhD from the Justus-Liebig University in Giessen, Germany, in the fields of cellular biology, microbiology, and immunology, his doctoral thesis focusing on mucosal immunity. He then moved to LIH to work on leukaemia. Dr. Moussay is currently focusing his research on the communication between cancer cells and their microenvironment, in particular on exosomes, using both in vitro and in vivo models. He established collaborations with leading European research centres in Villejuif, Heidelberg, Cambridge and Nice.

Dr Clement Thomas

Group Leader and CANBIO Supervisor

Dr Thomas is the group leader of the research group Cytoskeleton and Cancer Progression. He obtained his PhD in Cellular and Molecular Biology, and his HDR (Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches) from the University of Strasbourg, France, in 2003 and 2010, respectively. His team focuses on actin regulatory proteins and related signalling pathways driving cancer cell invasion and immune evasion, with the goal to identify new prognostic markers and therapeutic targets to block metastasis, the primary cause of death from cancer.

Dr Gunnar Dittmar

Group Leader and CANBIO Supervisor

Dr Dittmar is group leader of the proteomics group and deputy head of the Quantitative Biology Unit. He has a strong background in chemistry and biochemistry. He did his PhD at the DKFZ, the German Cancer Research Centre in Heidelberg, working on a cell biology project. He worked for six years first as a postdoctoral fellow and later as an instructor of cell biology at the Harvard Medical School in Boston, USA. He was recruited as an independent group leader at the Max Delbrück Centre for Molecular Medicine (MDC) in Berlin in 2003. Before joining LIH in 2016, he was the Head of the proteomics platform at MDC and of the Proteomics Core Facility of the Berlin Institute of Health.

Prof Iris Behrmann

Prof Behrmann is Professor in Biochemistry, Head of the Department of Life Sciences and Medicine and group leader of the Signal Transduction team. She studied biology in Bielefeld, Germany, and carried out her PhD at the German Cancer Research Centre (DKFZ) in Heidelberg, Germany on cDNA cloning of the death receptor Fas. In 1994, she became group leader at the Institute of Biochemistry, RWTH Aachen Medical School, Germany, where she obtained the “venia legendi” in 2001. Her longstanding research interests are cancer and inflammation, with a focus on cytokine signal transduction via the Jak/STAT pathway. She joined the University of Luxembourg in 2003 and is (co)author of more than 65 original publications.

Prof Serge Haan

Head of Doctoral School, Principal Investigator and CANBIO Supervisor

Prof Haan is Professor in Biological Chemistry at the University of Luxembourg since 2011 and is the director of the Doctoral School in Systems and Molecular Biomedicine. He holds a PhD and a habilitation in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. His current research activities mainly focus on the investigation of molecular mechanisms that play a role in gastrointestinal cancers, primarily colorectal carcinoma. His team Molecular Disease Mechanisms uses in vitro, in vivo and bioinformatics techniques as well as primary tumour material to dissect the mechanisms underlying tumour initiation, tumour progression, treatment resistance and tumour/microenvironment interactions.

Dr Stephanie Kreis

Principal investigator and CANBIO supervisor

Dr Kreis is a senior lecturer at the University of Luxembourg and an independent principal investigator. She holds a PhD in Virology and has strong expertise in molecular and cell biology and basic bioinformatics. The current research focuses of her miRNA Team are the functional role of microRNAs, the potential of microRNAs as biomarkers in different cancer types such as melanoma or hepatoma, gene regulation, the non-coding genome, drug resistance and drug screening for new kinase inhibitors and other cancer drugs, as well as next generation sequencing and genomics.

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Dr Elisabeth Letellier 

Principal investigator and CANBIO supervisor

Dr Letellier is PI in the Molecular Disease Mechanisms group at the University of Luxembourg. She has a background in cellular and molecular biology and obtained her PhD from the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg. Since joining the University in 2009, she works on colorectal cancer and its tumour environment. She is particularly interested in deciphering the role of microenvironmental stimuli, such as hypoxia, but also cyokines emerging from stromal-associated fibroblasts (CAFs), on tumour cells. Ultimately, her current projects aim at understanding how tumour initiation occurs and how tumour cells can disseminate and form clinical relevant macrometastases at a secondary organ.

Prof Thomas Sauter

Principal investigator and CANBIO supervisor

Prof Sauter is Professor of Systems Biology. He was Head of the Doctoral School in Systems and Molecular Biomedicine and is Study Director of the Master program in Integrated Systems Biology as well as of the international Master program of Science in Biomedicine. His research team is focussed on molecular systems biology, particularly on model-based data integration and analysis of disease-specific networks. His expertise thereby covers detailed modelling of cancer signalling networks, reconstruction of context-specific metabolic networks, clinical data analysis and genome-wide epigenetic analysis.

Prof Michel Mittelbronn

FNR PEARL Chair and CANBIO supervisor

Prof Mittelbronn is Head of the National Center of pathology at the Laboratoire national de santé (LNS) in Luxembourg. An internationally renowned neuropathologist, he is the recipient of the prestigious FNR-funded PEARL Chair in Neuropathology, with a joint appointment at the LIH, the LNS and the University of Luxembourg. Prof. Mittelbronn has set up the Luxembourg Centre of Neuropathology encompassing a diagnostic neuropathology unit at the LNS and an extensive research program in neuro-oncology and neurodegenerative diseases with LIH and the LCSB/UL, respectively. Formerly, Prof. Mittelbronn headed the diagnostic neuropathology at the Neurological Institute of the Goethe University Frankfurt/Main.

Dr Daniel Stieber

Head of Unit and CANBIO co-supervisor

Dr Stieber is heading the Molecular Genetics Unit at LNS. After receiving his PhD, he did postdoctoral research in breast cancer susceptibility genetics and the intra-tumoural heterogeneity of brain tumours. The team is focused on molecular genetic diagnostics in red blood cell disorders (mainly haemoglobinopathies) and on the development and implementation of state-of-the-art methods for molecular pathology of solid tumours. In that regard, a novel interest of the laboratory is the use of circulating tumour DNA to detect and monitor acquired somatic alterations in cancer patients.