Cédric Blanpain

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Cédric Blanpain
Born(1970-09-06)6 September 1970
Uccle, Belgium
Alma materUniversité libre de Bruxelles (MD/PhD)
Awards
Outstanding Young Investigator Award ISSCR

Prix Quinquennal FNRS

Scientific career
Fields
Institutions

Cédric Blanpain (born 6 September 1970) is a

solid tumors in vivo. He was selected by Nature as one of 10 People who mattered most in 2012 and he received the outstanding young investigator award of the International Society for Stem Cell Research
.

Biography

Born in Uccle in 1970.[1] Cedric Blanpain attended Collège Saint-Hubert for his secondary education. Graduating in 1987, he started medical school with an aim of becoming a psychiatrist.[2] As soon as his first year, he started doing research in human physiology at the Institut de Recherche Inter-Disciplinaire en Biologie Moléculaire and was thereafter introduced to molecular biology by Gilbert Vassart, the director of the IRIBHM.[2]

After graduating

HIV infection.[3] Cedric Blanpain earned his PhD in 2001 for his work on CCR5 and HIV infection and received the 2002 Galen Award of Pharmacology in recognition of his graduate work.[4]

After earning his PhD, Cedric Blanpain went back to finish his board certification in internal medicine, sub-specializing in genetics. From there on, his career would be entirely dedicated to research.[1] In 2002, he earned a fellowship from the Belgian American Educational Foundation to study in the USA (Boat of 2002) [5].[6] He did his post-doc with Elaine Fuchs (a lifelong mentor[7]) at the Laboratory of Mammalian Cell Biology and Development of Rockefeller University, studying epidermal stem cells and tissue differentiation.[8] The Fuchs lab was one of the few labs then studying epidermal stem cells.[3] He was also a long-term fellow of NATO and the Human Frontier Science Program[9] during this period.

In 2006, he accepted an offer from the Belgian National Research Fund to become an independent group leader at his home institute, the IRIBHM.[10] He established the stem cells and cancer lab at ULB, becoming professor in 2013. He received a starting grant from the ERC in 2008 and a consolidator grant in 2014. He received a career development award from the Human Frontier Science Program.[9] Since 2011, he is also an investigator of the Walloon Excellence in Life Science and Biotechnology (WELBIO).[1] He pioneered the use of lineage tracing in cancer research.[11] Ever since establishing his lab, Blanpain received several international awards, including the EMBO Young Investigator Award[12] and the Liliane Bettencourt Award for Life Sciences 2012.[13]

He has also written several authoritative reviews on stem cells for journals such as Cell,[14] Science,[15][16] Cell Stem Cell[17][18][19] and Nature.[20][21]

Research

Cancer cell of origin, tumor stem cells and heterogeneity

The Blanpain lab has been studying the

cancer stem cells regulate tumor growth and relapse after therapy.[22][23]

His lab showed that

infundibulum rather than hair follicles.[24] In 2018, his lab identified the cell population in basal cell carcinoma that mediates vismodegib resistance. They also showed that the administration of Vismodegib in combination with a Wnt inhibitor leads to tumor eradication, a potential new strategy against BCC.[25]

They defined for the first time the quantitative dynamics of tumor initiation at the

invasive tumors and demonstrated that the capacity of oncogene expressing cells to induce tumor formation depends on the specific clonal dynamics of the oncogene targeted stem cells at the origin of the cancer.[26]

The Blanpain lab has been studying the different cell states of the

tumorigenesis.[27]
They characterized the different transitional states of tumor cells during EMT, in particular they showed that specific subpopulations have higher potential to undergo EMT and
mesenchymal states passing through intermediate hybrid states. Although all EMT subpopulations presented similar tumor propagating cell capacity, they displayed different cellular plasticity, invasive and metastatic potential.[28]

The lab also showed the role of

PIK3CA in inducing heterogeneity in breast tumors, especially its role in reprogramming basal cells into luminal ones and vice versa. They showed that cell fate reprograming during tumorigenesis correlated with the cell of origin, tumor type and different clinical outcomes of breast tumors.[29]

His team showed the first experimental evidence for the existence of

VEGF in regulating cancer stem cells.[31]

In

Sox2, they demonstrated by lineage ablation that Sox2 cancer stem cells are essential for tumor initiation and progression in primary tumors and identified the gene network regulated by Sox2 in primary tumour cells in vivo as well as several direct Sox2 target genes controlling critical tumor functions.[32] They also demonstrated the role of the Twist1 gene in cancer for tumor maintenance and growth, within squamous cell carcinoma again.[33]

Breast Gland Development

Using lineage tracing of basal cells and luminary

post-natal development, the Blanpain lab showed that different mammary tissue lineages stem from multipotent embryonic progenitors. These multipotent progenitors are replaced soon after birth by unipotent stem cells.[34] His group developed new techniques to perform quantitative lineage tracing to unravel the multilineage differentiation potential of stem cells during development and adult homeostasis. Using novel lineage tracing strategies, they demonstrated that ER positive cells in the mammary gland developed and are maintained in adult gland through unipotent progenitors that are restricted to hormone receptor expressing cells.[35] The differentiation of the multipotent progenitors into basal cells is mediated through p63 activation. Finally, these multipotent progenitors express similar genes as breast tissue tumors (e.g. Sox11, Stmn1 and Mdk), showing that reactivation of multipotency is involved in tumorigenesis.[36]

Epithelial stem cells

After he started work at the Fuchs lab, Blanpain was part of a world-first: isolating stem cells based on their quiescence using

Wnt/Beta-Catenin stabilization in precocious bulge stem cell activation[39] and the role of Notch signaling pathway in promoting spine cell development.[40]

CCR5 and HIV

Cedric Blanpain started his research career working on the

Delta32 inactivating allele of CCR5 which prevents HIV infection[44]

Awards and honors

References

  1. ^ a b c "Itinéraire d'un chercheur gâté" (PDF). Esprit Libre. February–March 2012.
  2. ^ a b Béatrice Delvaux and Marie Thieffry. "Entretien avec Cédric Blanpain". No. 11 and 12 August 2018. Le Soir.
  3. ^ a b c Scudellari, Megan (July 2013). "Master of Fate". The Scientist.
  4. ^ a b "Galen Prize of Pharmacology Laureates". Galen Prize. Archived from the original on 2022-12-27. Retrieved 2019-03-25.
  5. ^ "BAEF Alumni – BAEF".
  6. ^ a b "BAEF Alumni 2002". BAEF. Archived from the original on 2018-12-10. Retrieved 2019-03-25.
  7. ^
    PMID 22704515
    .
  8. ^ "Cedric Blanpain, un chercheur qui trouve plus vite que son ombre". L'Echo. 30 November 2015.
  9. ^ a b c "Cedric Blanpain". HFSP. Archived from the original on 2019-04-01. Retrieved 2019-03-25.
  10. ^ a b c d e f g "Prix Quinquennaux" (PDF). FNRS.
  11. ^ a b Baker, Monya (19 December 2012). "366 days: Nature's 10. Ten people who mattered this year". Nature.
  12. ^ "Cedric Blanpain: an insatiable curiosity". EMBO Encounters.[permanent dead link]
  13. ^ a b "Prix Liliane Bettencourt pour les Sciences du Vivant". Fondation Bettencourt Schueller. October 2014.
  14. PMID 17289566.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link
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  21. PMID 29132145
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  22. ^ Lambert, Philippe (2 February 2017). "Cédric Blanpain, chercheur pure souche". Journal du Médecin.
  23. ^ Sedwick, Caitlin. "Cédric Blanpain: The stories stem cells tell". Vol. 199, no. 4. Journal Cell Biology.
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  44. S2CID 12928787
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  45. ^ "Cédric Blanpain". Académie Royale de Médecine de Belgique.
  46. ^ "Blanpain Cédric". Academy of Europe.
  47. ^ "ULB Foundation Prize for Cedric Blanpain". HFSP. Archived from the original on 2019-04-01. Retrieved 2019-03-25.
  48. ^ "22q11.2 deletion syndrome: Novel approaches to understand cardiopharyngeal pathogenesis". Fondation Leducq.
  49. ^ "Chaire Bauchau". AdrienBauchau.
  50. ^ "Le Roi décerne dix titres de noblesse: Les scientifiques Cédric Blanpain et Dominique Bron nommés baron et baronne". 20 July 2022.
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