Postdoctoral position in the Meylan Lab – Signaling mechanisms of lung tumor development and response to immunogenic therapies

Lab’s interests
The research program of the Meylan’s group is on the immuno-metabolic control of lung malignancies,
with a focus on intercellular communication systems, innate immunity and tumor-associated
neutrophils. Using a combination of in vitro cell cultures, genetically-engineered mouse models,
bioinformatics as well as patient-derived tumor tissue sections, we hope our research will contribute
better, knowledge-based treatments of patients in a near future.

In 2021 our group relocated from EPFL (Switzerland) to ULB (Belgium). Currently composed of 7-8
staff, it is strategically located on two complementary research sites, (1) the Institut Bordet (Erasme
campus, Brussels) that offers immediate proximity to clinical oncologists and access to precious tumor
samples, and (2) the Laboratory of Immunobiology (Gosselies campus) that comprises multiple
immunology groups and state-of-the-art facilities, together providing excellent conditions for research
on cancer immunobiology. The postdoc, although expected to be located mostly on the Gosselies site,
will benefit from both locations for research and interactions.

Project
Our goal is to comprehend mechanistically the signaling and metabolic pathways, in tumor cells and in
T cells, which functionally link immunogenic cell death to immunotherapy response in two clinicallyrelevant
mouse cancer models (lung adenocarcinoma and hepatocarcinoma), using CRISPR and
ProCODE approaches for gene manipulation and protein-based bar-coding.
Building from our recent studies of lung adenocarcinoma (CellRep 2017, NatCom 2020, CanRes 2021),
we will use new in vivo genomics screens to investigate the role of signaling pathway components of
innate immunity and cell death on (1) tumor progression and (2) the response to immunogenic
chemotherapy. This project will be done in the framework of a newly established collaboration with
two neighboring laboratories, headed by Fabienne Andris and Stanislas Goriely. Thus, this project will
benefit from a strong inter-group collaboration and from daily interactions, which will catalyze research.