Peter Vandenabeele
Molecular Signaling and Cell Death
VIB Department for Molecular Biomedical Research, UGent

PhD: Univ. of Ghent, Ghent, Belgium, '90 VIB Group leader since 1996

e-mail phone +32 9 331 37 60 ADDRESS

Current team members
Group leader: Peter Vandenabeele
Staff scientists: Nozomi Takahashi, Wim Declercq
Postdoctoral scientists: Brigitta Brinkman, Dmitri Krysko, Franky Van Herreweghe, Malgorzata Kubica, Mathieu Bertrand, Saskia Lippens, Tom Vanden Berghe
Ph.D. Students: Agnieszka Kaczmarek, Alain Goethals, Corinne Rösselet, Ellen Wirawan, Esther Hoste, Kristof Kersse, Linde Duprez, Magdalena Wejda, Michael Devos, Nele Vanlangenakker, Philippe De Groote, Rene Bilingwe Ayiseh, Sasker Grootjans, Yves Dondelinger
Support personnel: Barbara Gilbert, Jelle De Medts, Jelle Verspurten, Jill Vanden Broecke, Liesbeth Heyndrickx, Ria Roelandt

Keywords
apoptosis and necrosis - caspases - mouse transgenesis - skin differentiation - signal transduction

Science
Cell death is a crucial process in ontogeny, homeostasis and pathologies. Without (cell) death there would be no life. Every day about 100 billion  cells die in our body. It is remarkable that in most cases we are tolerized against this daily cellular massacre. However, many diseases can be traced to a deregulation of cell death either as being too sensitive (neurodegenerative diseases, autoimmunity diseases, organ transplantation), or being too resistant (cancer). Three major types of cell death have been described: apoptosis, necrosis and autophagic cell death. Many questions concerning the intracellular signalling of these cell death modes and the intercellular communication still wait for answers.

A subgroup in our unit headed by Wim Declercq studies a particular situation of cell death and inflammation, viz. the skin. The terminal differentiation of keratinocytes and the formation of the cornified envelop is a beautiful example how dead cell corpses are involved in protection against UVB, water loss and infection.
The unit tries to generate fundamental knowledge about the biology and potential biomedical application of a set of important molecules (caspases, RIP kinases) and their targets in cell death and inflammation. Molecules of interest are studied at four major levels: molecules (structure function, complexes, substrates), cells (intracellular signalling), intercellular communication, and organisms (transgenic models in various disease models). Our aim is to define molecular targets in these pathways that may lead to the development of therapeutic strategies to interfere in a specific way with cell death and inflammation.
Our fundamental research may have therapeutic applications in cancer, inflammatory and neurodegenerative diseases, and skin pathologies.

Peter Vandenabeele was chairman of the 11th European Apoptosis meeting held in Ghent, October 24-28, 2003.

Link to Group's website for more details.

Press Release
See also press release (02/02/2009): Foamix Ltd. and VIB Sign Co-Development Agreement for Innovative Topical Therapy for Psoriasis

See also press release (22/05/2007): Caspase-14 protects our skin against UVB and dehydration - based on a publication in Nature Cell Biology (Denecker et al., Nature Cell Biology, 2007)

Declercq W, Vanden Berghe T, Vandenabeele P
RIP kinases at the crossroads of cell death and survival
CELL 138, 229-32, 2009



Verspurten J, Gevaert K, Declercq W, Vandenabeele P
SitePredicting the cleavage of proteinase substrates
TRENDS BIOCHEM SCI 34, 319-23, 2009



Demon D, Van Damme P, Vanden Berghe T, Deceuninck A, Van Durme J, Verspurten J, Helsens K, Impens F, Wejda M, Schymkowitz J, Rousseau F, Madder A, Vandekerckhove J, Declercq W, Gevaert K, Vandenabeele P
Proteome-wide substrate analysis indicates substrate exclusion as a mechanism to generate caspase-7 versus caspase-3 specificity
MOL CELL PROTEOMICS 8, 2700-14, 2009



Denecker G, Hoste E, Gilbert B, Hochepied T, Ovaere P, Lippens S, Van Den Broecke C, Van Damme P, D'herde K, Hachem J, Borgonie G, Presland R, Schoonjans L, Libert C, Vandekerckhove J, Gevaert K, Vandenabeele P, Declercq W
Caspase-14 protects against epidermal UVB photodamage and water loss
NAT CELL BIOL 9, 666-74, 2007



Saelens X, Festjens N, Parthoens E, Vanoverberghe I, Kalai M, Van Kuppeveld F, Vandenabeele P
Protein synthesis persists during necrotic cell death
J CELL BIOL 168, 545-551, 2005

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