Febe van Maldegem

The tumour microenvironment as biomarker and therapeutic target

Febe van Maldegem is group leader in the Department of Molecular Cell Biology & Immunology. Her work focusses on the complex role of the tumour microenvironment in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), crucial for mediating anti-tumour immunity, but more frequently imposing resistance to therapy. Key to her work is the use of highly multiplex technologies, most notably Imaging Mass Cytometry with which the tumour microenvironment can be studied in great detail, revealing the activation states as well as the spatial context of the many cells within the tissue. Febe van Maldegem’s research program, supported by award of the Amsterdam UMC fellowship, aims to improve therapeutic options for patients with non-small cell lung cancer by rationalising the design of combination, mindful of the important role for the tumour microenvironment in determining success.

5 Key Publications

Mugarza E*, van Maldegem F*, Boumelha J, Moore C, Rana S, Sopena ML, East P, Ambler R, Anastasiou P, Clavijo PR, Valand K, Cole M, Molina-Arcas M, Downward J. Therapeutic KRASG12C inhibition drives effective interferon-mediated anti-tumour immunity in immunogenic lung cancers. Preprint in bioRxiv, October 19, 2021.  doi: 10.1101/2021.10.18.464819, Submitted for publication.

Van Maldegem F, Valand K, Cole M, Patel H, Angelova M, Rana S, Colliver E, Enfield K, Bah N, Tsang VSK, Mugarza E, Moore C, Hobson P, Levi D, Molina-Arcas M, Swanton C, Downward J. Characterisation of tumour microenvironment remodelling following oncogene inhibition in preclinical studies with imaging mass cytometry. Nature Communications. 2021 Oct 8;12. doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-26214-x

van Maldegem F, Downward J. Mutant KRAS at the Heart of Tumor Immune Evasion. Immunity. 2020 Jan 14;52(1):14-16. doi: 10.1016/j.immuni.2019.12.013

Molina-Arcas M, Moore C, Rana S, van Maldegem F, Mugarza E, Romero-Clavijo P, Herbert E, Horswell S, Li LS, Janes MR, Hancock DC, Downward J. Development of combination therapies to maximize the impact of KRAS-G12C inhibitors in lung cancer.

Sci Transl Med. 2019 Sep 18;11(510):eaaw7999. doi: 10.1126/scitranslmed.aaw7999

van Maldegem F, Maslen S, Johnson CM, Chandra A, Ganesh K, Skehel M, Rada C. CTNNBL1 facilitates the association of CWC15 with CDC5L and is required to maintain the abundance of the Prp19 spliceosomal complex. Nucleic Acids Res. 2015 Aug 18;43(14):7058-69. doi: 10.1093/nar/gkv643