About
Jan Van den Bossche completed his study in Bioscience Engineering in 2006 at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium), specializing in Cell and Gene Biotechnology and Immunology. Throughout his career he has been fascinated by the regulation and plasticity of macrophages.
He obtained his PhD in 2011 at the Myeloid Cell Immunology lab, headed by Prof. Jo Van Ginderachter at VIB, Brussels, Belgium. During this period, he identified E-cadherin as a new marker for M2 macrophages and described polyamines as crucial regulators of macrophages.
He joined to the group of Prof. Menno de Winther at the Academic Medical Center (AMC) of Amsterdam in 2012. As a starting post-doctoral researcher, Jan Van den Bossche obtained a junior postdoc grant from Netherlands Heart Foundation (Hartstichting) to study histone acetylation as a regulator of macrophages during atherosclerosis.
Obtaining a VENI grant from NWO allowed him to start an independent research line, investigating the metabolic regulation of macrophages.
At the end of 2017, Jan became group leader and PI at the Department of Molecular Cell Biology and Immunology where his group investigates how targeting macrophage metabolism can be applied to improve their function and disease outcome.
Research Line
Our research aims to explain how metabolic reprogramming regulates macrophage subsets in different settings, focusing on cancer and cardiovascular disease. By unravelling key questions in macrophage immunometabolism, our overall goal is to demonstrate whether and how targeting macrophage metabolism could be used for future therapy.
Our distinct research lines investigate how metabolic enzymes like ATP Citrate Lyase and (immuno)metabolites like succinate and itaconate control macrophage responses and disease progression.
Metabolic rewiring in macrophage subsets
(source: Van den Bossche, O’Neill & Menon, Trends in Immunology, 2017)
Our distinct research lines investigate how metabolic enzymes like ATP Citrate Lyase and (immuno)metabolites like succinate and itaconate control macrophage responses and disease progression.
Key publications
- de Goede KE, Harber KJ, Van den Bossche J. Let’s enter the wonderful world of immunometabolites. Trends in endocrinology and metabolism. 2019
- Van den Bossche J, van der Windt GJW. Fatty acid oxidation in macrophages and T cells; time for reassessment?Cell Metabolism. 2018
- Baardman J, Verberk SGS, Prange KHM, van Weeghel M, van der Velden S, Ryan DG, Wüst RCI, Neele AE, Speijer D, Denis SW, Witte ME, Houtkooper RH, O’neill LA, Knatko EV, Dinkova-Kostova AT, Lutgens E, de Winther MPJ, Van den Bossche J. A Defective Pentose Phosphate Pathway Reduces Inflammatory Macrophage Responses during Hypercholesterolemia.Cell Reports. 2018 Nov 20
- Van den Bossche, L. A. O’Neill, and D. Menon. Macrophage Immunometabolism; Where Are We (Going)?Trends in Immunology, 2017 Apr 7.
- Van den Bossche J, Baardman J, Otto NA, van der Velden S, Neele AE, van den Berg SM, Luque-Martin R, Chen HJ, Boshuizen MC, Ahmed M, Hoeksema MA, de Vos AF, de Winther MP. Mitochondrial Dysfunction Prevents Repolarization of Inflammatory Macrophages. Cell Reports. 2016 Oct 11.
Team
Translational Macrophage Immunometabolism group “ImmunoMetLab” – Kyra de Goede, Sanne Verberk, Jan Van den Bossche, Elisa Meinster, Karl Harber (left to right, august 2019)
Sanne Verberk’s PhD aims to target immunometabolic circuits in atherosclerotic macrophages to improve their function and disease outcome. This work is funded by a Netherlands Heart Foundation senior researcher grant.
Kyra de Goede is funded by a CCA (Cancer Center Amsterdam) PhD grant and studies macrophage immunometabolism and immunometabolites in the tumor microenvironment.
Karl Harber is appointed on a ACS (Amsterdam Cardiovascular Sciences) PhD grant and investigates immunometabolites in the context of atherosclerosis in collaboration with Prof. Menno de Winther and Michel van Weeghel at AMC.
Elisa Meinster is research technician in our group and supports distinct research lines investigating how metabolic alterations in macrophages drive their function and disease outcome. Elisa is funded by a CCA Proof-of-concept grant and an European ERA-CVD consortium grant.
Other PI's
Sue Gibbs
Maarten Witte
Febe van Maldegem
Gijs Kooij
Elga de Vries
Sandra van Vliet
Sergey Nejentsev
Reina Mebius
Yvette van Kooyk
