My research is focused on cancer because…

Any cell in our body can become cancerous through a multitude of trajectories and there is a critical need to harness scientific insights to understand how they transform, so we can develop actionable diagnostic and therapeutic modalities for incurable cancers.

Briefly describe your current work

My lab focuses on mature B cell lymphoma, a cancer of our immune system that originates from B cells having survived an intense competition process. We have developed novel mouse and patient-derived models of these competing cells and derived tumors. We are using precise immunological approaches and spatial analyses to identify the microenvironmental, metabolic and biochemical adaptation processes that support aberrant B cell competitiveness, aggressive transformation, cancer dissemination and resistance to treatment. We aim to discover fundamental pathogenic mechanisms of clinically unfavorable B cell malignancies and identify new routes of therapeutic intervention.

What achievements are you most proud of?

1. With an incredible team of collaborators across research fields, we discovered a novel mechanism of malignant transformation that recapitulates the embryonic process of supercompetition, whereby B cells can completely outgrow surrounding cells via a subtle biochemical effect. This leads to aggressive and disseminated tumors that recapitulate relapsed/refractory Diffuse Large B cell Lymphomas and are driven by mutations of the poorly characterized BTG1 gene (Mlynarczyk C et al, Science 2023).

2. I have had the chance of mentoring almost twenty trainees over the years. Supporting and witnessing their scientific and personal growth into passionate and committed researchers and physicians has been a true joy. I am proud of them and looking forward to their future contributions to our better understanding of cancer.