Madelon Maurice

Professor Madelon Maurice is a cancer cell biologist known for her seminal contributions to understanding how cell-cell communication governs tissue renewal and how faulty regulation of these processes drives human cancer. Her group is amongst the leading laboratories internationally in the field of Wnt signalling, a central pathway controlling stem cell maintenance and frequently hijacked by cancer cells.  

A longstanding focus of her research is on ubiquitin-mediated regulation of signalling pathways, including the discovery that the membrane-bound E3 ligase RNF43 controls Wnt receptor turnover in stem cells. More recently, her work led to the invention of SureTACs technology that employs membrane-anchored E3 ligases to enable proximity-induced degradation of disease-relevant membrane proteins. 

The innovative nature of her work has been recognized by several prestigious grants (ERC, NWO-VICI, national Gravitation grants) and by her election as a member of the national Oncode Institute. Based on her discoveries, the biotech company Laigo Bio was launched in 2021 to translate SureTACs into therapeutic applications. Madelon is co-founder, shareholder and chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of Laigo Bio.