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Welcome to the website of the LPCM
The Laboratory for Precision Cancer Medicine (LPCM) makes part of the Translational Cell and Tissue Research Unit of the Department of Imaging and pathology at the KU Leuven in Leuven, Belgium.
Precision Cancer Medicine aims at matching the right treatment to the right patient. Major research efforts are being invested in using the latest genetic tools to match patients to their treatments. However, in spite of some successful examples, this remains a daunting task. The primary reason is the large variety of unique, complex genotypes throughout the patient population which make it difficult to enrich patient populations.
At the LPCM, we contribute to the generation of a functional roadmap of brain cancer by focusing on the following topics:
Developing the Leuven Living Tissue Bank (LLTB) of patient-derived cell lines (PDCLs) that are representative of the genetic and phenotypic heterogeneity as observed in the clinic. Currently, we are focusing on high grade brain tumors from both pediatric and adult patients, with a strong focus on Glioblastoma.
This is done in collaboration with Prof. Steven De Vleeschouwer, Prof. Raf Sciot, Prof. Paul Clement and Prof. Sandra Jacobs from the University Hospitals Leuven, Prof. Michiel Verfaillie (Europe Hospitals St. Elisabeth Uccle), Dr. David Vanderplancken (AZNikolaas Sint-Niklaas), Prof. Eric Put and Dr. Sven Bamps (Jessa Ziekenhuis Hasselt), and soon to come the Ziekenhuizen Oost Limburg (Dr. Frank Weyns and Dr. Thomas Daenekindt, ZOL) in Genk. In addition, a multi-center trial to collect pediatric samples across the country is in development. Each generated PDCL is fully characterized (genetically, transcriptionally and pathologically) and compared to the tumor of origin. This enables us to keep track of the relevance of each generated model. If you are interested in using any of these materials, please contact Prof. Frederik De Smet.
To increase multidisciplinary interactions between researchers and clinicians, our team is a member of the Leuven Kankerinstituut (LKI), where we are a part of the LKI Brain Cancer focus group.
Map of Belgium showing the different sites with whom we collaborate: blue (KULeuven/UZLeuven: primary center of the study); green and orange (ongoing collaborations); red: pediatric centers (soon to be started).