معرفی
Gabriele Bergers is a Professor of Oncology at KU Leuven and Group Leader at the VIB-KU Leuven Center for Cancer Biology since 2016. She previously served as a Full Professor at the University of California, San Francisco for 19 years, where she was also a PI in the Brain Tumor Research Center at the Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center. Her laboratory focuses on comprehensive investigations defining dialogues between heterogeneous tumor cell subtypes, vasculature, and immune cells within distinct tumor vascular niches during progression and targeted therapies.
Dr. Bergers' research centers on tumor microenvironment dynamics, particularly the interactions between tumor cells, vasculature, and inflammatory cells in regulating neovascularization and invasion in brain, breast, and pancreatic cancer models. Her work has revealed critical intrinsic and evasive resistance mechanisms to antiangiogenic therapy. Key research areas include high endothelial venules in cancer, tumor vasculature biology, immunotherapy response mechanisms, and therapeutic resistance pathways. Her laboratory investigates how tumor vascular niches influence immune cell recruitment and function, with implications for enhancing cancer immunotherapies.
Her recent publications demonstrate consistent leadership in cancer vascular biology, with emphasis on high endothelial venules as critical determinants of immunotherapy response. The research spans multiple cancer types including glioblastoma, melanoma, and breast cancer, integrating advanced techniques such as multi-omics, spatial mapping, and single-cell analysis to characterize tumor microenvironment heterogeneity and identify novel therapeutic targets.
- Sidney Kimmel award
- Sandler Opportunity award
- UCSF Breakthrough Biomedical Research award
- Judah Folkman award
- Editorial Board of Science
Dr. Bergers serves on multiple grant review panels including CPRIT, ERC, AIRC, and CRUK, and has been an External Advisory Board member for various universities and pharmaceutical companies. Her laboratory receives substantial funding through numerous projects including 'Hemorrhage-induced HO-1 macrophages infer resistance to antiangiogenic immunotherapies in cancer' (2025-2028) and 'Targeting the Treg – macrophage axis to promote immune stimulation and tertiary lymphoid structure formation in IDHwt GBM TME subtypes' (2023-2027). The Laboratory for Tumor Microenvironment and Therapeutic Resistance operates within the VIB-KU Leuven Center for Cancer Biology, collaborating closely with the LKI - KU Leuven Cancer Institute.
