Ilaria Elia

Dr. Ilaria Elia is an Assistant Professor at KU Leuven, where she has led the Laboratory of Metabolic Regulation of Cell Function since 2021. Her research explores how nutrient availability within the tumor microenvironment shapes tumor cell metabolism and T cell function, with the goal of improving immunotherapy outcomes.

During her Ph.D. at KU Leuven, Dr. Elia made important contributions to our understanding of metastatic breast cancer metabolism. She identified proline as essential for ATP production during metastatic colonization and uncovered how pyruvate-driven α-ketoglutarate metabolism remodels the extracellular matrix (Nature Communications, 2017; Nature, 2019).

She continued her training at Harvard Medical School, focusing on tumor immunology. Her postdoctoral work demonstrated that pyruvate anaplerosis drives succinate signaling and anti-tumor immune responses (Cell Metabolism, 2022) and revealed how one-carbon metabolism enhances the efficacy of immunotherapy (Cancer Discovery, 2023).

Her laboratory now investigates metabolic competition between tumor cells and T cells within nutrient-restricted niches, aiming to reprogram immune cell metabolism to improve infiltration into hostile environments and achieve durable immunotherapy responses. Dr. Elia has secured major funding for her independent research, including an ERC Starting Grant. She has presented at numerous international conferences, contributed influential review articles, and taken on several institutional leadership roles. Her work has been recognized with prestigious honors such as the FEBS Excellence Award and the Beug Foundation Metastasis Prize.