Nick van Gastel

Major achievements

• Lambertine Lacroix Prize for Cancer Research (2022)
• WELBIO Starting Grant (2022)
• Discovered that leukemia stem cells persisting after chemotherapy show transient metabolic changes, which can be therapeutically targeted to eliminate residual cancer cells (2020)

Question

What role do metabolites play in intra- and intercellular signaling in the bone marrow, and how is this altered in cancer?

Research focus

Metabolic signaling is an evolutionary ancient way for cells to respond to exogenous stimuli and to convey information to nearby cells, but the extent and importance of this signaling mechanism in mammalian cells is not well understood.

Nick van Gastel and his lab focus on understanding the metabolic signaling taking place in the bone marrow, where billions of new blood cells are made every day. The correct functioning of this process relies not only on blood stem cells, but also on their interactions with other cell types in the bone marrow microenvironment such as bone cells, blood vessel cells, immune cells and connective tissue cells. Using state-of-the-art metabolic analysis techniques in combination with cell and animal models, the lab aims to unravel the metabolic crosstalk occurring between blood cells and their microenvironment, and how it changes when cancer cells are present. Other efforts are focused on intracellular metabolism, studying which metabolic pathways are important for normal blood stem cells and what changes when the cells encounter stress or acquire genetic mutations. Researchers in the van Gastel lab are also developing new methods for metabolic analysis of small numbers of cells, down to the single cell level.

Through new discoveries in blood stem cell metabolism, Nick and his team seek to develop strategies to improve bone marrow transplantation or help in the treatment of blood cancer and other hematological diseases.

Projects

• Understanding metabolic support of leukemia and metastatic breast cancer cells in the osteoblastic bone marrow niche
• Targeting metabolism to enhance immune cell activity in the leukemic bone
• The role of aspartate in the normal and leukemic bone marrow niche
• Metabolic heterogeneity and plasticity in pediatric acute myeloid leukemia
• Development of novel tools to study leukemia cell metabolism at the single cell level
• Defining the metabolic drivers of clonal outgrowth in pre-leukemic hematopoietic stem cells

Nick van Gastel obtained his Master’s degree in Bioengineering from the University of Ghent (Belgium) in 2007. He then joined the lab of Dr. Geert Carmeliet at KU Leuven (Belgium), where he obtained his PhD in Biomedical Sciences in 2013 working on the development of bone regeneration strategies using skeletal stem cells from periosteum. He stayed in the same lab as a postdoctoral fellow for two years, investigating lipid metabolism in skeletal stem cells. Nick then continued his postdoctoral training in the group of Dr. David Scadden at Harvard University (USA), where he studied the links between metabolism and chemotherapy resistance in leukemia. He joined the de Duve Institute as a Group Leader in 2020, and became an F.R.S-FNRS Research Associate and UCLouvainAssociate Professor in 2021. Since 2022, Nick is also a WELBIO Investigator of the Walloon Excellence (WEL) Research Institute.

Honors

• Lambertine Lacroix Prize for Cancer Research (2022)
• WELBIO Starting Grant (2022)
• Abstract Achievement Award, American Society of Hematology (2019)
• Postdoctoral Fellowship, Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation for Childhood Cancer (2018-2020)
• Young Investigator Award, American Society for Bone and Mineral Research (2012)
• PhD Fellowship, Agency for Innovation through Science and Technology (IWT) Flanders (2009-2012)

Affiliations

• Group Leader, de Duve Institute
• Associate Professor, UCLouvain
• Research Associate, F.R.S.-FNRS
• Investigator, WELBIO Department, WEL Research Institute