Lund University
Lund, Sweden
Alexander Pietras, PhD, Associate Professor of Molecular Tumor Biology at Lund University, received a PhD in Laboratory Medicine in 2010 with a thesis on hypoxia-inducible factors in tumor cell differentiation and vascularization, and a primary focus on sympathetic nervous system tumors. His postdoctoral training was carried out at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, and later at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, in the laboratory of Eric C. Holland from 2011-14. There, his research focused on regulation of cancer stem cell phenotypes in high-grade glioma, with a particular focus on cell surface stem cell markers like CD44 and ABCG2. Since establishing his independent research laboratory in Lund in 2015, work in the Pietras group has focused on phenotypic plasticity of cancer stem cell phenotypes, and in particular regulation of cancer stemness by the tumor microenvironment. Members of the laboratory use a combination of in vivo, ex vivo, and in vitro approaches to study the evolution of stem cell niche function during standard of care radiotherapy and tumor progression in glioblastoma, with an eye to identification of novel therapeutic targets in the crosstalk between tumor cells and the microenvironment.
Alexander Pietras is a Swedish Cancer Socitey Junior Investigator, and a Ragnar Söderberg Fellow in Medicine.