Simone Lemeer is our new Assistant Professor

15 Jan Simone Lemeer is our new Assistant Professor

As of January 2014 Simone Lemeer started as Assistant Professor at the at the Biomolecular Mass Spectrometry and Proteomics group (Utrecht University). Before joining the group, Simone was group leader Mass Spectrometry at the Technical University of Munich in Germany.

Her future work will focus on the elucidation of the mechanisms of action of small molecule inhibitors in cancer cells, as well as identification of the intrinsic resistance mechanisms that are present in those cells. Constitutive acitivity of kinases is known to be crucial for a tumor to maintain its malignant phenotype. Small molecule inhibitors are therefore attractive therapeutics as they target these kinases that are critical for tumor cell survival and proliferation. Several small molecule inhibitors have been proven successful in the clinic, but despite initial success most cancers eventually develop resistance against these drugs. Resistance to the drugs, both intrinsic and acquired is a major problem and is believed to be the major cause of failure of drug treatment. Simone will use state state of the art, high sensitive, chemical proteomics and phosphoproteomics technology to study the dynamic changes of the kinome and phosphoproteome in response to small molecule inhibitor treatment, revealing mechanisms of action and resistance pathways in cancer cells in response to drug treatment.