Congratulations to Alexandra Helleux on the acceptance of her thesis!

With her work on two different types of renal cell carcinoma, Alexandra Helleux’s thesis tackled two projects. First, she highlighted the collaboration and spatial proximity of ccRCC mesenchymal tumor cells with a CAF subtype. Their association was linked with poorer survival, the development of metastases and resistance to immunotherapy.
With her second project, the PhD student showed the direct role of TFE3 fusion proteins on oxidative phosphorylation, and that epithelial-mesenchymal transition appears to play an important role in the aggressiveness of tRCCs. Together with the ICS, they developed and validated four new mouse models to better understand the disease.

Want to know more her project on ccRCC ? You can read this article published in Cancer Research: https://aacrjournals.org/cancerres/article-abstract/83/17/2952/728585/Mesenchymal-like-Tumor-Cells-and-Myofibroblastic?redirectedFrom=fulltext
 

During her time at the IGBMC, the PhD student was able to develop crucial skills in high-throughput sequencing techniques, such as RNAseq, ChIPseq and single-cell RNAseq. Alexandra Helleux was 2nd jury’s choice during the prestigious competition Ma these en 180 secondes 2022.

Alexandra Helleux’s thesis was made possible through the support of different IGBMC platforms and staff members. Thanks to our Genomeast, ICS, Culture cell and Imaging platforms’ members for their commitment! (Christelle Thibault-Carpentier, Marie Cerciat, Marie-Christine Birling, Hugues Jacobs, Ghina Bou-About, Sophie Brignon, Milan Hermmann, Elvire Guiot)

Thanks to Ligue contre le cancer for their support!

Alexandra Helleux is now looking for a new international opportunity as a scientist in cancer research or pharmaceutical domain using molecular and cellular biology technologies to develop new treatments! You can contact her if you wish to exchange more about her career plan.