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“Understanding patient-specific disease mechanisms to develop improved cancer-targeting strategies”

Our research

The overall aim of the Maurice lab is to gain a fundamental understanding of the dual nature of signals that guide homeostatic tissue renewal and cancer cell growth. In healthy tissue renewal, a handful of signalling pathways supports the maintenance of small populations of adult stem cells. Deregulation of these pathways due to mutations is strongly linked to cancer development. Our main focus is to investigate how patient-derived mutations alter protein activity to promote the initiation and progression of cancer growth. With these insights we aim to uncover patient-specific disease mechanisms and develop improved cancer-targeting strategies. To address these issues, we combine advanced gene editing, proteomics, biochemistry and imaging approaches with organoid-based disease models.


News

Research on “undruggable” cancer targets receives EIC Pathfinder grant

A groundbreaking approach that targets the degradation of membrane proteins in cancer cells has received funding from the European Innovation Council (EIC) Pathfinder program. The goal? To target previously “undruggable” cancer-related proteins by selectively degrading them and potentially offering a new way to overcome resistance to current cancer therapies. Led by Madelon Maurice at the Center for Molecular Medicine, […]

Fresh off the press!

We’re happy to share that two new papers from our lab have just been published in iScience. A big team effort went into these studies, and we’re excited to finally share them. Read more about the work and find the full articles below. Hepatocellular carcinoma–associated AXIN1 mutations drive low Wnt/β-catenin activity enabling niche-independent growth and […]

A Premalignant Shift: How LKB1 Mutations Prime Intestinal Cells for Cancer

Our publication describing how LKB1 mutations drive a premalignant state in the intestine is now online at Gastroenterology. The full article can be found here. Heterozygous mutations in the tumor suppressor LKB1 cause Peutz-Jeghers syndrome (PJS), a hereditary condition characterised by gastrointestinal polyps and increased cancer risk. While LKB1 loss in non-epithelial tissues was previously thought […]

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Prof. Madelon Maurice – © LaLoes fotografie

Scientific training and positions:

Other activities:

Prof. Madelon Maurice

Madelon Maurice is Professor of Molecular Cell Biology at the Center for Molecular Medicine of the University Medical Center Utrecht and a member of the Oncode Institute. Her group addresses key research questions in the fields of stem cell and cancer cell biology, using a multiscale approach in which structural and functional insights at the level of individual proteins are translated to the cellular and complex tissue level. The main interests of the Maurice group are to acquire a mechanistic understanding of major signalling pathways that control stem cell maintenance and tissue renewal and to investigate how patient-derived mutations impact on signal relay events to drive cancer growth. With these approaches the Maurice lab aims to contribute to novel paradigms on signalling and mutation-induced tumour progression and to the development of improved anti-cancer strategies.

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