A second ERC Consolidator Grant at the de Duve Institute!

After the Consolidator Grant obtained by Sophie Lucas two years ago, the European Research Council now rewards Guido Bommer. The European Research Council has a range of funding mechanisms that includes the Consolidator Grant, a very prestigious program that aims to encourage talented young research leaders to consolidate their research and provide the best possible science. [...] This five-year funding will enable Guido Bommer to lead the "Novel Metabolic Pathways in Cancer" project. Guido Bommer and his team have indeed recently discovered a new metabolic pathway involving two metabolites that have never been described before. Metabolic adaptations play a key role in cancer. However, although some of these changes have been known to exist for almost 100 years, the success of therapeutic interventions in major metabolic pathways remains quite limited. Biochemistry textbooks present the intermediary metabolism as if it were completely understood. The molecular identity of most enzymes required for the production of known intermediary metabolites is indeed well known. Yet, the function of many putative enzymes is still unknown, indicating that novel metabolic pathways containing so far unknown metabolites exist, such as the one recently identified by Guido Bommer's team. With the help of the ERC grant, Guido Bommer's team will use a multidimensional approach combining biochemical, genetic and pharmacological techniques to identify the missing components of the new metabolic pathway they have discovered and evaluate its role in the cellular metabolism and cancer development.