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Meet group leader Jan Remsik, who studies brain metastasis
Meet Jan Remsik, a new group leader at the VIB-KU Leuven Center for Cancer Biology. As he embarks on this exciting chapter of his career, his PhD student Alia Fazal Salom took the opportunity to ask him a few questions.
Welcome to VIB! You’ve lived in some interesting places before – what are you most looking forward to about living in Belgium?
Thank you. I come from Bratislava but spent quite some time in New York City, from where I moved to Belgium. And one of the things I am looking forward the most to enjoying here is, obviously, the Belgian chocolate!
Can you share your vision for the Laboratory for Immunology of Metastatic Ecosystems?
I think that with the combination of our unique models and resources available at VIB, KU Leuven, and UZ Leuven, we have a chance to look at brain metastasis from angles that other research groups are not able to. This is why we are so happy to be part of the VIB – we are given the opportunity to deliver real breakthroughs from the intersection of brain metastasis and immunology.
What excites you most about the future of your research?
There is a growing population of brain metastasis patients that is impatiently and desperately waiting for breakthroughs in the way we approach this group of diseases - yes, it is a group - in the clinic. Every day I go to work excited to uncover the nuances of this disease that others have not seen before!
What are you most proud of in your career so far?
When I was a postdoc, we collected a couple of samples from patients who had a metastasis type so obscure that it was largely considered terminal in the clinic. We actually diagnose it in up to 10% of advanced cancer patients. We call it leptomeningeal metastasis, and it occurs when cancer spreads to the spinal fluid that surrounds our brain. We modeled it in vivo and repurposed a microenvironment-targeting approach that is currently being tested in a phase I clinical trial. And now, I run a lab that is fully determined to studying this metastasis type even further!
What is one non-science fact about you?
That I drink much more coffee than water.
Finally, as we wrap up, what is the advice that you would have liked to get at the start of your career?
Don’t let other people discourage you from achieving your goals, no matter how unrealistic they are.
