Structural biology of immunity, inflammation and cancer

Our Unit for Structural Biology at the VIB-UGent Center for Inflammation Research deciphers the structure, mechanism, and functional modulation of proteins crucial to immunity, inflammation, cancer, and energy metabolism. Over the years we have taken a leading role in understanding the structure-function landscape of cytokine-mediated receptor assemblies and intracellular immunological modulators, and pro-inflammatory protein crystallopathies. The cornerstone of our research philosophy lies in a rigorous hypothesis-driven interrogation of the proteins and protein assemblies under study, and is firmly nested in collaborations with leading academic research groups in Belgium and abroad as well as industrial partners. We endeavor to engage in technology transfer based on our research breakthroughs and are strongly committed to educating and mentoring the next generation of structural biologists and science citizens.

We are currently investigating the following research areas::

• Extracellular and intracellular protein assemblies in immunity, inflammation, cancer, and energy metabolism.

• Structural and mechanistic principles underlying oncogenic receptor tyrosine kinases and their protein ligands.

• Development and engineering of activity modulators of protein-protein interactions and enzymes

• Crystallopathies and protein phase transitions in immunity, inflammation, and cancer.

Areas of Expertise

Structural biology
Protein biochemistry and biophysics
Structural Bioinformatics
Structure-function relationships of proteins in physiology and disease

Technology Transfer Potential

Structural and biochemical characterization of proteins and protein complexes, including Antibody-antigen complexes
Biophysical and biochemical characterization of protein-protein and protein-ligand interactions
Biologics and protein engineering
Structure-based drug design (small molecule, antibody, biologics, non-antibody protein scaffolds)
Recombinant protein production (cytokines, cytokine receptors, antibody fragments)

Selected publications

Bloch Y., Felix J. et al. Structures of complete extracellular receptor assemblies mediated by IL-12 and IL-23. Nature Structural and Molecular Biology 31(4):591-597 (2024) Visit ➚
Tsirigotaki, A. et al. Mechanism of receptor assembly via the pleiotropic adipokine Leptin. Nature Structural and Molecular Biology 30, 551-563 (2023). Visit ➚
Cao L, et al. Design of protein binding proteins from target structure alone. Nature 605:551-560. (2022) Visit ➚
De Munck, S. et al. Structural basis of cytokine-mediated activation of ALK family receptors. Nature 600, 143-147 (2021). Visit ➚
Persson, E. K. et al. Protein crystallization promotes type 2 immunity and is reversible by antibody treatment. Science 364 (2019). Visit ➚

Bibliography

Full bibliography Visit ➚