NARILIS is pleased to welcome Thomas Balligand, newly appointed Professor of Histology at UNamur

Thomas Balligand trained as a medical doctor at the UCLouvain in Brussels, where he quickly developed a strong interest in fundamental research. This passion led him to start a PhD thesis at the de Duve Institute in the lab of Prof. Stefan Constantinescu. His thesis focused on myeloproliferative neoplasms driven by CALR mutations (Balligand T et al., 2020).

Upon completing his PhD, his love for science and aspirations for a research career took him to Boston Children’s Hospital at Harvard Medical School, where he undertook a postdoctoral fellowship in Dr. Hidde Ploegh’s lab. His work there aimed at designing small antibody fragments, termed 'nanobodies', as tools to improve the treatment of different types of diseases, including cancer and influenza (Liu X, Balligand T et al., 2023). During his postdoc, he also acquired extensive experience in the design of nanobody-based radiotracers for PET/CT imaging in in vivo models.

At the beginning of October, Thomas Balligand joined the UNamur, where he will teach histology to bachelor students in medicine and biomedical sciences. In parallel to his teaching activities, he will soon start setting up his own research group at the Molecular Physiology Research Unit (URPhyM, NARILIS, UNamur). Building on his postdoctoral work, his future research projects will focus on designing nanobody and lectin conjugates to specifically target cancer cells and virus-infected cells.

Contact: thomas.balligand@unamur.be