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Damya Laoui

Damya Laoui

  • VIB group leader since October 2022
  • Tenure track Francqui Professor at VUB since October 2020
  • Postdoc: ISREC Institute, EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland
  • PhD obtained in 2014 at VUB

Damya Laoui graduated in Bio-Engineering Sciences and obtained a PhD degree at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB, Belgium) in 2014. After a post-doc in at the ISREC Institute in the Ecole Polytechnique de Lausanne, she came back to Brussels and started leading her own team focusing on tumor-immunology. She is exploring the role of immune cells (mainly macrophages and dendritic cells) in tumor progression and is developing new personalized (combinational)immunotherapies based on dendritic cells to win the battle against cancer. To share her passion of science, she is actively engaged in science communication, specifically encouraging young women to start and pursue studies and careers in STEM

Research focus

Our lab aims at using the heterogeneity of tumor-derived conventional dendritic cells as new targets for cancer immunotherapy, using state-of-the-art next-gen sequencing technologies.

Awards/Funding

For her work on tumor-derived dendritic cells, Laoui received the Dunia Award (African Awards) in 2017, the MIT Innovator under 35 Europe Award 2017, the New Scientist Award 2018, the Ignace Vanderschueren price in 2019 and the Collen-Francqui startup-chair in 2020.

The Laoui lab is funded by Kom op tegen kanker, Stichting tegen kanker, FWO and the VUB-Yamina Krossa foundation