Cédric Blanpain - Biography#

Cédric Blanpain graduated as a medical doctor (MD) and is board certified in internal medicine from the Université Libre de Bruxelles. He performed his PhD in the laboratory of Marc Parmentier, where he studied how CCR5, a receptor critical for HIV infection, interacts with its natural ligands and the viral envelope. He then performed a postdoctoral fellowship in the laboratory of Elaine Fuchs, Rockefeller University, where he demonstrated the multipotency of hair follicle stem cells (SCs) (Cell 2004) and characterized the role of β-catenin and Notch signaling in regulating skin SC activation and differentiation (Genes & Development 2005 and 2006).

Cédric Blanpain started his own lab at the Université Libre de Bruxelles in October 2006, where he is now full professor. His research group used lineage-tracing approaches to study the role of stem cells during development, homeostasis and cancer. In this manner, they uncovered novel stem cell populations in the skin, the prostate and the mammary gland. (Nature 2011, Nature 2012, Nature Cell Biology 2012). Moreover, they showed the importance of Mesp1 during cardiovascular progenitor specification and differentiation (Cell Stem Cell 2008, JCB 2011, Nature Cell Biology 2014, Cell Reports 2016, JCB 2016).

His lab also pioneered the use of mouse genetics to lineage-trace the origin of epithelial cancers. They identified the cancer cell of origin and the mechanisms regulating skin and breast cancer intiation and progression (Nature Cell Biology 2010, Nature Cell Biology 2012, Cell Stem Cell 2015). They identified the cell of origin and genomic landscape of squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) (PNAS 2011 and Nature Medicine 2015) as well as PIK3CA-mediated breast cancers (Nature 2015). They provided the first experimental evidence for the existence of cancer stem cells within their natural microenvironment (Nature 2012) and uncovered the role for VEGF, Sox2 and Twist1 in regulating skin tumor stemness (Nature 2011, Nature 2014, Cell Stem Cell 2014).