Department of Diagnostic Sciences

Laboratory for Cancer Diagnosis and Pathology

Research Domain

Our unit consists of 7 pathologists, all active at Ghent University and Ghent University Hospital, 6 residents in pathology and several PhD students, supported by a team of more than 25 medical laboratory technicians and medical assistants. The main mission of the Laboratory for Cancer Diagnosis and Pathology is to form a bridge between clinical and fundamental sciences.

Our pathology department has a broad experience in surgical and autopsy pathology in general, with focus on soft tissue pathology, gynaecological pathology, haematopathology, liver and pancreas pathology, prostate cancer, lung cancer, head and neck pathology, functional nephropathology, and electron microscopy. We provide histological, pathological, ultrastructural and immunohistochemical review of human and (transgenic) animal tissues. Our research group has ample expertise and continuously extends its expertise with the development of techniques to immunoprofile tumor samples. The Laboratory for Cancer Diagnosis and Pathology is also closely involved in the collection and analysis of biobank samples in cooperation with Bioresource Center Ghent.

In addition, senior pathologists and researchers at our lab show a profound interest in the molecular pathology of cancer, important for adequate diagnosis and patient selection for precision medicine. This research focuses for an important part on the development of molecular techniques that allow analysis of formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tumour material, for instance: shallow whole genome sequencing for copy number alterations, large panels for targeted sequencing, methylation sequencing and RNA sequencing. A second molecular genetics focus is analysis of plasma cell-free DNA, largely with the same sequencing methodologies. A team of 5 PhD students conducts research on these topics to explore new molecular methodologies for early diagnosis, tumour subtyping and precision medicine of prostate cancer, diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, Hodgkin lymphoma, lung cancer, and pancreas cancer. For all these projects there is an intense collaboration with the Center for Medical Genetics Ghent and several clinical departments of Ghent University Hospital.

Research Topics

  • soft tissue pathology

  • gynaecological pathology

  • haematopathology

  • liver and pancreas pathology

  • prostate cancer

  • lung cancer

  • kidney cancer
  • bladder cancer
  • testis cancer

  • head and neck pathology

  • functional nephropathology

  • electron microscopy

  • immunohistochemistry

  • immunoprofiling of cancers

  • molecular pathology

  • precision medicine

Contact

Bibliografie