Bio
Catherine Deceunynck:
Director of Research at CNRS, Exceptional Class
Deputy-Director of CRCI2NA, Nantes Angers Cancer and Immunology Research Center
Leader of the Team “Molecular Vulnerabilities of Tumor escape in mature B-cell malignancies
Dr C Pellat-Deceunynck obtained her PhD degree in 1992 for her work on nitric oxide activity against cancer cells in Curie Institute. During her post-doc in Nantes, she identified specific markers for human plasma cells (CD138), characterized the human plasma cell series during the B to PC differentiation by characterizing plasmablasts in vivo and in vitro and demonstrated that IL6 was their growth and survival factor. As an Associate Researcher at CNRS, she demonstrated the heterogeneity of human myeloma cells through the expression of cluster of differentiation and tumor antigens. She developed and characterized a unique myeloma cell line collection in order to decipher the myeloma heterogeneity at the molecular level and to identify targets and biomarkers related to the oncogenomic diversity. Since 2010, she extended her expertise to mantle cell lymphoma and focused her studies on the role of p53 pathway in the extrinsic and intrinsic pathways of apoptosis in myeloma and mantle cell lymphoma. She currently is head of Myeloma and Lymphoma research group, deputy director of the Nantes Angers Cancer and Immunology Research Center and deputy director of the Nantes Angers Comprehensive Care Centers’ research Program ILIAD (SIRIC ILIAD).
Eva Lion:
Assistant Professor Medical Cell Biology and PI at the Laboratory of Experimental Hematology, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences (FGGW), University of Antwerp (UAntwerp)
Alliance manager Cell, Gene and Tissue engineering Research, UAntwerp-POM Antwerp
Eva Lion obtained her PhD in 2011 from the University of Antwerp, Belgium. Her postdoctoral training at the Laboratory of Experimental Hematology (UAntwerp) and Center for Cell Therapy and Regenerative Medicine (Antwerp University Hospital) focused on developing personalized dendritic cell vaccines and bringing them to the patient via investigator-driven academic clinical trials. She is currently professor Medical Cell Biology and the first Alliance manager Cell & Gene Therapy research (2025) for the Antwerp region (UAntwerp-UZA-Science Park Antwerp). Her intertwined 2025 spearpoints within the translational immunology and cellular immunotherapy program are the (i) identification and functional validation of antigen-specific T-cell receptors (TCRs) in the context of biomarker and therapeutics research, powered by immune-informatics; (ii) advanced immune monitoring of the investigator-driven dendritic cell cancer vaccination trials; (iii) valorisation of these huge team efforts. As the first alliance manager, she aims to consolidate the cell, tissue and gene therapy research and enabling technologies in Antwerp, within Flanders, Belgium and beyond.
Tom Cupedo:
Associate professor at the Erasmus MC Cancer Institute
Tom Cupedo obtained his PhD in2003 from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He did his postdoctoral training with Hergen Spits at the AMC Amsterdam and is currently an associate professor at the Erasmus MC Cancer Institute, where he heads the multiple myeloma research lab. His research group studies the impact of the bone marrow microenvironment on development and therapy response in multiple myeloma, with a particular focus on the role of mesenchymal stromal cells.