Post-Doctoral Researcher

Applications are invited for a motivated post-doctoral scientist to join the Molecular Immunology laboratory at the Institut Jules Bordet (IJB, www.bordet.be ) currently located in the center of Brussels. Unique in Belgium, IJB is an autonomous comprehensive cancer hospital and research center, which is part of the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Bruxelles (CHUB), an organization that includes public and university hospitals in Brussels. At the end of 2021, lJB will move to a new building on the Université Libre de Bruxelles, Faculty of Medicine campus in Anderlecht. This move will regroup all of the IJB research labs on a dedicated floor with state-of-the-art equipment and research laboratories.

IJB is committed to the fight against cancer with an extensive network of interdisciplinary oncology teams that extend from the research laboratory to the hospital bed. Leading basic, translational and clinical research is pursued at the Institute with accelerating the process whereby laboratory findings are implemented in patient care as one of its principal goals. Research in the Molecular Immunology laboratory is focused principally on adaptive immune responses in breast and other human tumors.

The lab’s current efforts are focused on understanding immune regulation in the tumor microenvironment and the elements most relevant to patients treated with immunotherapy. Our recent work shows that the balance and extent of immune activities in tumors play a key role in treatment responses and long-term clinical outcomes. Over the past year, the laboratory’s work has focused on further understanding how tertiary lymphoid structures (TLS) contribute to active anti-tumor immune responses. This post-doctoral fellowship will investigate the mechanisms underlying the establishment of functional tertiary lymphoid structures in the stroma of some patient’s tumors. Our recent data suggest that the balance between activated effector and regulatory TIL subpopulations are key to functional activation. We shall continue to investigate their balance within individual TLS in an effort to understand how functionality is regulated.