Tissue immune microenvironment: spatial biology

Research aim

Understand the immune mechanisms that underly cancer and inflammatory disease, to impact diagnosis and therapeutic strategies in patients.

About us

Immune dysregulation contributes to diseases such as cancer, chronic inflammation, and immune deficiency. The Vercoulen group develops spatial biology methods to analyze tissues and understand the inflammatory mechanisms that underly these diseases, and response to therapies .

Immune dysregulation and resulting disease can be facilitated by many factors in the tissue. We aim to unravel the different cell types in the tissue microenvironment, and the crosstalk between cells that contributes to disease and therapy response.

To understand such complex processes, we develop and implement novel and innovative technology, such as highplex imaging. This allows analysis of single cells, and tissue sections in great detail, to identify cell types, behavior, and their location. We have recently developed a method to analyze single cells in images generated through integration of mass cytometry and microscopy ‘MATISSE’. We perform spatial analysis of proteins, post-translational modifications, and RNA. We highly value our collaborations with fundamental, translational, and clinical colleagues, and strive to develop both innovative tools, generate and share knowledge, drive the field of spatial biology forward, and impact patient care.