In vitro models to study tumor endothelial cell-mediated immune cell reprogramming in lung cancer. 

Since the beginning of his scientific career, Dr Lucas Treps has always been intrigued by blood vessels and their dysfunction in various human diseases and pathological microenvironments. After completing his doctorate at the Cochin Institute, Paris (Dr Julie Gavard’s team) working on the glioblastoma vascular niche, he did his post-doctorate in the team of Prof Peter Carmeliet (VIB Leuven, Belgium), a scientist internationally renowned for his fundamental research on angiogenesis. Among his projects, Lucas was able to characterise the heterogeneity of endothelial cells in lung cancers, and identify new endothelial populations with immunomodulatory potential (Goveia et al Cancer Cell 2020).

In 2024, Lucas was appointed as CRCN CNRS at the CRCI2NA, Nantes, in the team ITMI (Immunomodulation of the Tumor Microenvironment and Immunotherapy of Thoracic Cancers). Through complex in vitro co-culture systems and scRNA-seq approaches in patient-derived 3D multicellular spheroids, his group investigates how the vascular compartment tailor lung cancer immunity (monocyte/lymphocyte compartments) and responses to anti-cancer treatments.