Draft:Bart Vanhaesebroeck

Bart Vanhaesebroeck is a Belgian-UK scientist based at University College London. Vanhaesebroeck is Professor of Cell Signalling at the UCL Cancer Institute.

Career
Vanhesebroeck earned a licentiate in 1985 and a PhD in 1990, both from the University of Ghent. He then performed postdoctoral studies with Michael Waterfield at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research (London Branch) where he set up his independent research group in 1998. He became Professor at University College London in 2005 and Associate Member of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in 2006. In 2007, he moved to Barts Cancer Institute at Queen Mary University of London to set up the Centre for Cell Signalling. In 2014, he became Professor of Cell Signalling at the UCL Cancer Institute.

Research interests
Vanhaesebroeck's research team has made fundamental discoveries in the field of cell signalling by lipid second messengers, work which has led to approved medicines for leukemia.

Vanhaesebroeck’s contributions include uncovering the functions of PI 3-kinase (PI3K) family members and the identification of PI3Kd, the main PI3K in white blood cells, in which it controls immune functions. His work has underpinned the generation of PI3Kd inhibitors that are currently used in the treatment of haematological malignancies and are being trialled in cancer immunotherapy of solid tumours. His team’s development of small molecule PI3K activators has opened new avenues for kinase drug development and their therapeutic applications.

Awards and honours
Vanhaesebroeck was elected as a Member of the European Molecular Biology Organisation (2012) and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology (2011), the Academy of Medical Sciences (2016) and the Royal Society (2024).