Mathias Wenes

Dr. Mathias Wenes studied Biomedical Sciences at the University of Leuven, Belgium, and then joined the lab of Prof. Massimiliano Mazzone at the University of Leuven and the Flemish Institute of Biotechnology (VIB) as PhD student. He investigated how the phenotype of macrophages was influenced by different aspects of the tumor microenvironment and discovered a metabolic cross-talk between macrophages and endothelial cells in the tumor and metastasis. (published in Cell Metabolism and Cell Reports).

He then extended his experience in tumor immunology by pursuing a post-doc on T cell biology in the lab of Prof. Pedro Romero at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. He made 2 discoveries linking metabolic pathways with epigenetic reprogramming in CD8 T cells driven by histone post-translational modifications (Cell Metabolism and Nature, last author). Both discoveries do not only shed light on metabolic processes determining T cell function and fate in infection and cancer, but also have translational potential in adoptive cell transfer immunotherapy of cancer.

Dr. Wenes is now Research Fellow in the lab of Prof. Denis Migliorini at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, as well as Head of Immunotherapy in a Geneva-based start-up MPC Therapeutics, where he is interested in the metabolic-epigenetic regulation of tumor-infiltrating immune cells as well as actively translating his postdoctoral findings on improving cellular immunotherapies to the clinic, respectively.