CV Science

Vera Pancaldi PhD

Course and current status

ACADEMIC CAREER

2021: HDR- Qualification to direct doctoral theses, Paul Sabatier University, Toulouse, France.
2008: PhD Dep. of Physics and Earth Sciences Eng., Imperial College London, UK
2004: Undergraduate MSci degree in Physics, Imperial College London, UK

CURRENT AND PREVIOUS POSITION(S)

2021 - Tenured researcher INSERM Chargé de Recherche Classe Normal (1st in selection Commission). 
2018 -   Team leader: NetB(IO)² Network Biology for Immuno-oncology, Cancer Research Center of Toulouse (CRCT), INSERM/CNRS/University Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, France.
2018 - 2024    Barcelona Supercomputing Center, Spain, Senior staff scientist, Life Science Department (BioInfo4women Scheme)
2016 - 2017 Post-doctoral staff scientist, Spanish National Cancer Research Center (CNIO), Madrid, Spain.
2012 - 2015 Post-doctoral FEBS fellow, Spanish National Cancer Research Center (CNIO), Madrid, Spain.
2010 - 2012 Post-doctoral Fellow, Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge, UK
2007 - 2010 Post-doctoral Fellow, Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment, University College London and Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, UK

AWARDS:

2018-2023 Chair of bioinformatics in immuno-oncology of the CRCT
2016-2018 Friends of CNIO fellowship Post-doctoral fellowship, Spain.
2012-2015 FEBS Long-Term Fellowship, Spain.
2000-2004 Ph.D. Department scholarship, Earth Sciences & Engineering, Imperial College London

Scientific summary

Personal Statement

I was trained as a physicist at Imperial College London and soon found my way in systems and computational biology. Since 2018 I lead a computational biology team at the Cancer Research Center of Toulouse (CRCT) working on modelling cancer and its interactions with the immune system.

After obtaining a PhD in applied physics, I converted to bioinformatics and computational modelling and have worked on projects on yeast, plants and cancer, mostly using network theory approaches in transcriptomics and epigenomics.  I started my lab as the  Chair of bioinformatics in oncology of the CRCT in 2018 where my main current focus is relating patient heterogeneity, for example in tumour infiltrating immune cells and their spatial patterns, to patient prognosis in different types of cancers. Since 2018 I lead an approximately 10 people team, mainly computational, who uses multi-omics integrative approaches, machine learning and network theory, as well as mathematical models, to describe and simulate intra- and inter-cellular interactions in tumours. We have multiple collaborations with experts in immunotherapy and cancer metabolism. 
We currently co-coordinate the data integration efforts within the COALA French lung cancer network.

Through the years, I have participated in several national and international research projects as partner and PI, I am involved in stimulating and animating the bioinformatics research community at our center, associated with a large oncological hospital, and participate as lecturer in numerous courses and meetings on computational biology, with 40 invited talks and lectures in the last 5 years.
I have supervised about 10 post-doctoral researchers and 7 PhD students (3 have defended).
Personal leave: 2014 (6 months) 2016 (6 months)

Selected grants in the last 5 years

INCa LabrEx, COALA (Curing Oncogene Addicted Lung Adenocarcinoma), 2024-2029 Collaboration network coordinated by J. Mazieres, co-leading Data sharing Work Package.
Ligue Nationale Contre Le Cancer Team, Equipe labellisée, 2024-2029, Description and simulation of cellular interactions in the tumour microenvironment: targeting tumour associated macrophages to defeat treatment resistance. 
ANR RD2Bool 2024-2028 (Coordinator, with L. Pauleve and L. Calzone) Data driven modelling of inter-cellular interactions
SANOFI iDEA-iTECH ITI-NSLC (October 2023-October 2024)  “Integrating transcriptomics and imaging data for immunotherapy response prediction in non small-cell lung cancer” 
EU EraPerMed: MIRACLE (2022-2025) A Machine learning approach to Identify patients with Resected non-small-cell lung cAnCer with high risk of reLapsE, with Julien Mazieres (CRCT, IUCT-Oncopole), coordinated by Paola Ulivi.
Fondation JANSSEN AI Horizon  2022-2025 (with A. Coullomb and P. Cordelier (CRCT)) Deep learning and spatial transcriptomics for predicting response to oncolytic virotherapy in PDAC.

Scientific production: 59 peer-reviewed journal articles since 2007.
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7433-624X 
Scopus Author ID: 16043223200, 2,645 Citations H-index 21 
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