Christine Desmedt

Prof. Christine Desmedt received her bio-engineer degree in Cells and Genes Biotechnology from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven, Leuven) in 2000.

In September 2000, she started working at the Jules Bordet Institute, Brussels, an autonomous comprehensive cancer center devoted entirely to the fight against cancer. For two years, she worked as a clinical monitor for the Breast European Adjuvant Studies Group (Br.E.A.S.T), coordinating the monitoring activities of external groups for the conduct of breast cancer trials. This experience gave her the necessary clinical background for carrying optimal translational breast cancer research.

In 2003, she joined the Breast Cancer Translational Research Laboratory of this Institute, headed by Prof. Christos Sotiriou, where she started a PhD entitled “Multimarker approach for improving breast cancer treatment tailoring” with Prof. Martine Piccart as co-promoter. In 2004, she earned a master in bio-medical sciences at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (U.L.B.) and successfully defended her PhD in 2008. Until 2018, she acted as the Translational Research Coordinator of the lab, conducting research projects and assisting the head of the lab in the scientific and administrative management of the lab.

In 2010-2011, she was a visiting scientist for several months at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Hinxton, UK, under the supervision of Dr. P. Campbell in the Cancer Genome Project lab.

She returned to KU Leuven in October 2018, where she was appointed as Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Medicine, where she is heading the Laboratory for Translational Breast Cancer Research. Besides her teaching duties, she is committed, together with her team, to perform excellent multi-disciplinary research to further personalize treatment for and with patients with breast cancer. Today, she is an Associate Professor with multiple landmark projects under her belt that continue to move the benchmark of patient-led, patient-centric breast cancer research.