Biosketch
Stefanie K. Wculek studied Molecular Biology at the University of Vienna and completed her Master’s thesis on the mechanisms of skin inflammation in 2011. Then, she investigated the role of neutrophils in cancer at Cancer Research UK/The Francis CRICK Institute and obtained her PhD from the University College London in 2016. In her postdoctoral work at the Spanish National Center for Cardiovascular Research (CNIC) in Madrid, Stefanie specialized on the biology and metabolism of macrophages and dendritic cells in homeostasis and chronic diseases such as cancer and obesity. In February 2023, Stefanie joined the IRB Barcelona “Aging and Metabolism” research program as Junior Group Leader to head the Innate Immune Biology laboratory.
Research profile
Stefanie Wculek specialized on the biology of innate immune cells since her MSc training. During her PhD with Ilaria Malanchi, she pioneered the finding of neutrophils as drivers of metastasis (breast cancer metastasis to the lung) and lung cancer initiation.
For her early postdoctoral stage, Stefanie joined the lab of David Sancho and a Horizon2020-funded consortium of research centers, a biotech company and hospitals. There, she developed a new immunotherapy based on type 1 conventional dendritic cells for cancer.
Main research questions:
- How do macrophages, dendritic cells and neutrophils adapt to the different tissues they colonize? Do they tailor their cellular metabolism? Does that influence their functionality?
- What determines the aberrant functions of innate immune cells in aging and non-infectious pathologies such as cancer and obesity? Is their metabolic dysfunction involved? Is there a basis for future therapies?
- How do innate immune cells affect the health of their homing organ, independently of immune responses? What is the nature and relevance of the cross-talk between myeloid cells and their neighboring tissue cells?
Furthermore, Stefanie specialized on investigating the immunometabolism of innate immune cells in vivo across different organs in her late postdoc. She identified the tissue-specific dependency of lipid-handling macrophages on oxidative phosphorylation and showed that this metabolic vulnerability of macrophages can be therapeutically explored to ameliorate obesity-associated diseases.
In her independent research group, Stefanie continues to investigate the biology and immunometabolism of dendritic cells, neutrophils and macrophages: their adaptations to environmental alterations in vivo and how those can be exploited for immunotherapy.
Positions and training
2023 – Present: Junior Group Leader Innate Immune Biology lab, IRB Barcelona, Spain
2016 – 2023: Postdoctoral Researcher in the David Sancho lab at the CNIC, Madrid, Spain
2011 – 2016: PhD student in the Ilaria Malanchi lab at the Francis Crick Institute (formally Cancer Research UK), London, UK
Contributions
- Chair of the Equality and Diversity Committee of the IRB Barcelona
- Guest lecturer at the University of Barcelona (Advanced Immunology Master, focus Immunometabolism)