Member info

• FACULTY:
  Medicine and Health Sciences
• DEPARTMENT:
  Biomolecular Medicine
• RESEARCH GROUP:
  Nanobody Lab
• FUNCTION:
  PI
• WORK ADDRESS:
  Nanobody Lab, Technology Lane 75, 9052 Ghent, Belgium
• PUBLICATIONS:
  Google Scholar
• SUMMARY:
  My lab specializes in the development and characterization of nanobodies against proteins considered potential drug targets. Camelidae nanobodies offer several advantages over conventional antibodies. They are much smaller, but have similar specificity and binding affinities as conventional antibodies. Nanobodies are coded by a single exon, and thus can be easily amplified by PCR and expressed in large amounts. My lab has extensive expertise in knocking out functions of proteins in cells using nanobodies. Using nanobody technology, we have studied proteins that regulate cancer cell migration, invasion and metastasis. Our specific contributions to the field are that we have been able to demonstrate that nanobodies act as high-affinity antagonists of protein function, without the need to alter protein expression, and we have succeeded in triggering protein loss-of-function by intracellular redistribution of endogenous proteins to different subcellular loci. Our lab uses a comprehensive approach, in which biochemistry, protein chemistry, cell biology and molecular biology are blended and integrated.
• EMAIL:
  Jan.gettemans@ugent.be
• WEBLINK:
  https://www.ugent.be/ge/biomolecular-medicine/en/research/research-labs/nanobody-lab/overview.htm