Speleman Lab

The Speleman lab focuses on perturbed gene regulatory processes in pediatric cancer, more specifically neuroblastoma and T-ALL. To this end the lab uses in vitro model systems, patient derived xenografts and in vivo modeling with major focus on zebrafish and the introduction of an ESC derived neuroblastoma tumor model. Cancer genomes and transcriptomes are explored by polyA and total RNA, ATAC, ChIP, 4C-sequencing and currently further methods are being explored to gain deeper insights into gene regulatory processes and enhancer biology. The lab further focuses on the role and function of dependency genes in replicative stress resistance in MYC(N) driven cancers as an entry point for novel drugging approaches. Together with prof. Vandesompele, prof. Speleman was the inspirator of an intensive research program on noncoding RNAs at the Ghent University leading to several breakthrough papers in recent years. This research covers a wide area from translational (prognostic signatures, drugable targets, nanoparticles....) towards more fundamental (gene and pathway discovery) all supported by a solid bioinformatics team. In addition, the team is now succesfully integrating zebrafish modeling into ongoing neuroblastoma and leukemia research in order to accelerate novel insights into tumor initiation, cooperative genetic defects and perturbed oncogenic signaling as a prelude to identification of novel drug targets.