ERC Starting Grants Awarded to Two DBM Researchers
Each year, the European Research Council (ERC) awards Starting Grants to support outstanding early-career researchers in establishing ambitious and innovative research programs. We are delighted to announce that two researchers from the Department of Biomedicine are among this year’s grant recipients. These awards recognize the scientific excellence of their research and will provide them with the freedom to pursue bold new ideas over the coming years.
Turning leukemia’s metabolic shields into vulnerabilities
Petya Apostolova and her team are investigating why acute myeloid leukemia (AML) can return even after one of the most powerful treatments available: allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. This treatment replaces a patient’s blood-forming system with that of a donor and allows donor immune cells to recognize and eliminate leukemia cells. However, leukemia cells can find ways to escape this immune response, resulting in relapse.
Apostolova’s research suggests that changes in leukemia cell metabolism may play an important role in immune evasion. In particular, her team has identified bioactive lipids — fat molecules that act as cellular signals — as potential "shields" that help leukemia cells evade immune attack. Some of these changes appear to be triggered by previous chemotherapy, making this research especially relevant for patients undergoing transplantation.
Receiving an ERC Starting Grant is a huge recognition for my team and for me. It gives us the intellectual freedom to take real risks on ambitious ideas we couldn't have pursued otherwise.
Petya Apostolova
With her ERC-funded project LIFE (Bioactive Lipids For Targeting Leukemia Immune Evasion), Apostolova and her team will investigate how two groups of bioactive lipids, phosphatidic acid and oxylipins, contribute to immune evasion. They will study whether these molecules change how leukemia cells are recognized by the immune system or act as secreted mediators to suppress the activity of immune cells. Using approaches ranging from lipidomics and single-cell technologies to CRISPR screening and experimental transplantation models, the researchers will also search for additional lipid pathways that could become therapeutic targets.
I am truly honored to receive this award, especially at such a pivotal moment as I begin establishing my lab at the Department of Biomedicine - it feels like a dream come true. This funding will significantly accelerate the trajectory of my lab and enable me to build a stronger team, thereby having a profound impact on the progress of my career.
Petya Apostolova
The long-term goal is to transform these metabolic shields into vulnerabilities. By targeting bioactive lipid metabolism, Apostolova hopes to strengthen the immune system’s ability to eliminate leukemia cells and ultimately improve outcomes after stem cell transplantation. These findings could also provide broader insights into how cancer metabolism shapes the interactions between tumors and the immune system.
She is particularly proud to have reached this milestone while remaining clinically active as a physician.
The LIFE project will start in January 2027 and will receive approximately EUR 1.5 million in funding.
Decoding the neural signals that shape anti-tumor immunity
Karen Dixon and her team are investigating an emerging frontier in cancer biology — how the nervous system senses the presence of a tumor and, in turn, shapes the immune response to cancer. Peripheral nerves continuously monitor changes in tissues, yet we still know remarkably little about how these neural circuits are rewired during cancer or how signals from the nervous system influence anti-tumor immunity. More broadly, this work asks how communication between the nervous system and peripheral tissues contributes to the body’s response to disease.
With the ERC-funded project NeuroCAN, the Dixon Lab will investigate how peripheral nerves detect inflammatory and immune signals within the tumor microenvironment, and how neuronal signals in turn regulate the recruitment and function of immune cells. Preliminary findings suggest that this communication is bidirectional; tumors can reshape local neural circuits, while those same circuits can profoundly influence the immune response within the tumor.
Receiving an ERC Starting Grant is incredibly meaningful to my lab. It is a strong vote of confidence in the direction we are building together in the Dixon Lab and gives us the freedom to pursue ambitious questions at the interface of neuroscience, immunology and cancer biology.
Karen Dixon
The team will combine neuroanatomical tracing, single-cell transcriptomics, cell-specific genetic models and functional manipulation of neural circuits to uncover the fundamental mechanisms underlying this communication. In particular, they will investigate how tumors remodel sensory neurons and how neuronal signals subsequently shape immune-cell behaviour and the broader immune landscape.
Over the coming years, our goal is to establish NeuroCAN as a broader research program that uncovers the fundamental mechanisms by which the nervous system senses disease in peripheral tissues and shapes immunity. We hope this work will make a meaningful contribution to this enormously exciting field, while ultimately revealing pathways that could be exploited therapeutically.
Karen Dixon
By revealing how the nervous system detects and responds to cancer, NeuroCAN aims to define fundamental principles of neuro-immune communication in tumors. Ultimately, this work could change how we think about tumor-host interactions and open new therapeutic possibilities at the interface of neuroscience, immunology and cancer biology.
With the ERC-funded project NeuroCAN, the Dixon Lab will investigate how peripheral nerves detect inflammatory and immune signals within the tumor microenvironment, and how neuronal signals in turn regulate the recruitment and function of immune cells. Preliminary findings suggest that this communication is bidirectional; tumors can reshape local neural circuits, while those same circuits can profoundly influence the immune response within the tumor.
The team will combine neuroanatomical tracing, single-cell transcriptomics, cell-specific genetic models and functional manipulation of neural circuits to uncover the fundamental mechanisms underlying this communication. In particular, they will investigate how tumors remodel sensory neurons and how neuronal signals subsequently shape immune-cell behaviour and the broader immune landscape.
By revealing how the nervous system detects and responds to cancer, NeuroCAN aims to define fundamental principles of neuro-immune communication in tumors. Ultimately, this work could change how we think about tumor-host interactions and open new therapeutic possibilities at the interface of neuroscience, immunology and cancer biology.
The NeuroCAN project will start in June 2027 and will receive approximately EUR 1.9 million in funding.