iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Louise Fets

Alexis Barr @alexisbarr.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

Excellent opportunity @mrc-lms.bsky.social for a human physiologist to start their own group. Deadline 4th May. Core funding, excellent package. Please repost! lms.mrc.ac.uk/work/vacanci...

lms.mrc.ac.uk

Programme Leader Track - MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences

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Reposted by Louise Fets

Science X / Phys.org @sciencex.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

Advanced imaging of ovarian tumor samples shows that PARP inhibitors can become trapped in lysosomes, creating internal drug reservoirs that may influence treatment resistance and effectiveness. doi.org/hbswwr

medicalxpress.com

Hidden drug reservoirs in cancer cells could explain treatment resistance

One of oncology's biggest challenges is that the same treatment can work well for some patients but fail completely in others.

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Louise Fets @louisefets.bsky.social · 19/03/2026

Thank you Max! There are definitely a lot of parallels with your beautiful bedaquiline work

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Louise Fets @louisefets.bsky.social · 19/03/2026

Great collaboration that took us to places we definitely were not anticipating! Thank you Zoe and congratulations to you too! 🎉 ♥️

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Louise Fets @louisefets.bsky.social · 27/02/2026

Join us in Belfast for two days of rigorous metabolic science, ECR-led talks and posters, and exciting opportunities for collaboration. The UK Cancer Metabolism Network is a young but fun and open community - do check out the meeting, registration open until 24th March!

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Reposted by Louise Fets

MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences @mrc-lms.bsky.social · 20/11/2025

📣 We’re hiring 6 new Team Science postdocs! Our Team Science approach brings together interdisciplinary researchers to tackle questions no single field can solve alone. Find out more and download our brochure below

lms.mrc.ac.uk

MRC Postdoctoral Research Scientists x 6 - MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences

Team Science Project

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Louise Fets @louisefets.bsky.social · 10/07/2025

Congratulations Will Scott and team @mrc-lms.bsky.social on some fantastic work looking at how adipose tissue remodels in obesity and weight loss.

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Louise Fets @louisefets.bsky.social · 07/07/2025

Seconded! Worth a look for anyone who wants to open a lab working on metabolic physiology and/or disease, or immunometabolism

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Reposted by Louise Fets

Vicki Metzis @vmetzis.bsky.social · 27/06/2025

Paper alert! I am really pleased to share the final version of the work led by Irène Amblard in the team on a regulatory switch controlling Cdx2 expression during posterior body development! #regulatorylogic #devbio @mrc-lms.bsky.social @imperialmed.bsky.social

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Reposted by Louise Fets

MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences @mrc-lms.bsky.social · 25/06/2025

Congrats to the drug transport and tumour metabolism group, headed by @louisefets.bsky.social for winning two awards!

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Louise Fets @louisefets.bsky.social · 12/06/2025

Thank you for all your help with single cell imaging approaches! A fab collaborator as ever ♥️

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Louise Fets @louisefets.bsky.social · 12/06/2025

Couldn't have done it without you!! ♥️

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Louise Fets @louisefets.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

Heterogeneity is rife in all tumours and we’re excited to explore drug distribution with other drug/cancer combinations, and the implications for efficacy and resistance. Finally, a huge thank you to the Fets Lab members, all collaborators and of course the patients. We’d love to hear any feedback!

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Louise Fets @louisefets.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

By contrast, Olaparib isn’t a weak base so shouldn’t accumulate in lysosomes. Sure enough, when we measured intracellular concentration of all three drugs, Olaparib was not displaced by increased lysosomal pH, but in accordance with our GeoMx data, both Niraparib and Rucaparib were.

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Louise Fets @louisefets.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

But why does Rucaparib accumulate in lysosomes to begin with? Rucaparib (and also niraparib!) are weak bases, becoming protonated and therefore more hydrophilic at the low lysosomal pH. This creates a gradient that favours more drug across the cell

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Louise Fets @louisefets.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

…and in fact, the more rucaparib can accumulate in the lysosomes, the higher the signal in the nuclear compartment, where it interacts with its target proteins PARP1 and PARP2!

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Louise Fets @louisefets.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

But how does this impact activity? We found that high-Rucaparib cells showed increased DNA damage (γH2AX) and reduced proliferation after treatment, suggesting the lysosomal drug pool isn’t ‘trapped’, but contributes to efficacy…

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Louise Fets @louisefets.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

Importantly, the more acidic the lysosome (modulated with V-ATPase inhibitors or activators), the more rucaparib accumulated within the cell, showing that this organelle really was a driver of intracellular rucaparib concentration

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Louise Fets @louisefets.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

In fact, the punctate distribution of rucaparib co-localised with lysosomes, and the content of lysosomes per cell was highly correlated to rucaparib content!

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Louise Fets @louisefets.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

As well as imaging, we could FACS sort cells that accumulate high rucaparib and compare to low drug cells. By doing this as early as one hour after treatment to minimise drug responses, we could better understand what was driving differential accumulation, which again revealed lysosomal signatures…

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Louise Fets @louisefets.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

….and shows heterogenous accumulation even within cell line models— a perfect tool to dig deeper.

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Louise Fets @louisefets.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

The PDE system is powerful, but takes 24h for the drugs to reach steady-state throughout, making it tricky to unravel the factors driving differential drug accumulation from concentration-dependent drug responses. BUT! Rucaparib is naturally fluorescent…

media.tenor.com

a light bulb is on a wooden table

ALT: a light bulb is on a wooden table

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Louise Fets @louisefets.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

Using GeoMx Spatial Transcriptomics on adjacent slices for rucaparib and niraparib-treated PDEs, we compared high and low drug regions. High drug regions were enriched in apoptotic signatures, and intriguingly, we also found an association with #lysosomal signatures!

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Louise Fets @louisefets.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

Dosing ex-vivo, we could image drug distribution independently of tumour vasculature, to explore cell-intrinsic differences in drug accumulation. Mass Spec Imaging, with expert tutelage of @zoehall-icl.bsky.social, revealed particularly striking heterogeneity in rucaparib and niraparib-treated PDEs

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Louise Fets @louisefets.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

We asked whether intra-tumour heterogeneity affects drug distribution, and if this impacts drug response. To answer this, Carmen set up a multimodal imaging pipeline using PARP inhibitor-dosed patient derived explants (PDEs) from HGSOC tumours (big thanks to Paula Cunnea&Christina Fotopoulou!)

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Louise Fets @louisefets.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

We’re excited to share a new pre-print from the lab! Led by Carmen Ramirez Moncayo and a fantastic collaboration with several groups from across @mrc-lms.bsky.social & @imperialcollegeldn.bsky.social. Interested in #OvarianCancer, #PARPinhibitors or #DrugDistribution? please read on! bit.ly/45lpekS

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Louise Fets @louisefets.bsky.social · 27/03/2025

Eeekkk HUGE congratulations @aakritijain.bsky.social and @robzonculab.bsky.social! 🎉 🎉 🎉 Such a cool story and very pleased to see it out!

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Reposted by Louise Fets

Alannah King @dralannah.bsky.social · 10/02/2025

🚨 Less than one week until the abstract deadline for the Mechanisms of Membrane Transport GRS!! 🚨 📅 Apply by Feb 16th! If you enjoy learning about novel insights into membrane transporters in beautiful places, this is the conference for you! 🧪 #STEMseminar

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Louise Fets @louisefets.bsky.social · 09/02/2025

Fantastic time at the lab's first retreat with @Alexis_Barr lab - great to get away and have some time for team building and big picture thinking. Very proud of how open and engaged both teams were. Until next time!

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Louise Fets @louisefets.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

Really excited to be invited to this GRS event, these small group conferences are always a lot of fun and so great for learning and networking. Well worth a look for any ECRs in the membrane transport field!

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Louise Fets @louisefets.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

Exciting data on the pro-survival role of p21 in NSCLC! Congratulations Steve and @alexisbarr.bsky.social, and I hope this will be the first of many collaborative papers together! 🥰

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Reposted by Louise Fets

Almut Schulze @almutschulze.bsky.social · 20/12/2024

Excited to announce two DFG-funded PhD positions to study Lipid Droplet Heterogeneity in cancer as part of FOR5815. Join us @dkfz-heidelberg if you are interested in #cancermetabolism and #lipidbiology jobs.dkfz.de/en/jobs/1673... jobs.dkfz.de/de/jobs/1673...

jobs.dkfz.de

PhD Student in Lipid Metabolism in Cancer

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Reposted by Louise Fets

Boris Lenhard @borislenhard.bsky.social · 20/12/2024

A PhD position in computational genomics is open in our group at Imperial/MRC LMS! 🌟 Join the DANIO-ReCODE Doctoral Network and work on gene regulation, evolution, development, and tissue regeneration. Open to all (except those residing in the UK in the past year). Deadline: 8 Jan 2025. t.ly/fDdDW

nature.com

Research Assistant with funding to undertake PhD - London (Central), London (Greater) (GB) job with Imperial College London (ICL) | 12834104

About the role: We are seeking an applicant for a fully-funded HORIZON-MSCA-2023-DN Research Assistant position with funding to undertake PhD in th...

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Louise Fets @louisefets.bsky.social · 19/12/2024

New PI positions @mrc-lms.bsky.social 👀 It's truly a great place to start a lab, definitely worth a look if you're on the job market. Please share with your networks!

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Reposted by Louise Fets

Wiebke Arlt @wiebkearlt.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

We are hiring! Programme Leader Track positions @mrc-lms.bsky.social up for grabs by up-and-coming researchers with a great start to their career who now aim to establish their own group in a translational discovery science institute of world leading excellence. lms.mrc.ac.uk/work/vacanci...

lms.mrc.ac.uk

Programme Leader Track - MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences

Programme Leader Track appointments are an open-ended contract, which comprises a six-year advanced career development scheme after which you will be considered for promotion to Programme Leader.

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Louise Fets @louisefets.bsky.social · 18/12/2024

It's been a good year for the lab, with highs including a new PhD, paper submitted and an AACR grant won. Some bitter sweet moments saying goodbye to some lovely lab members, but welcoming some great new/returning ones too. Merry Christmas to you all from all of us ♥️🎄🥂 🌟

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Reposted by Louise Fets

Annwen Jones @jonesannwen.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

Medical research has transformed the treatment of #ovariancancer recently but resistance to the new class of drugs - parp inhibitors - must be overcome in order to realise their full potential. Congratulations Dr @louisefets.bsky.social & Dr Moncayo - the patient community is cheering you on!

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Louise Fets @louisefets.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

Thank you so much for your kind words @jonesannwen.bsky.social! We'll do our very best 💪

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Louise Fets @louisefets.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

Congratulations Tim and the team! And you're right, we should definitely organise that coffee :)

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Louise Fets @louisefets.bsky.social · 16/12/2024

Thanks Tim! And coffee sounds lovely, let's organise something in the new year 😊

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Louise Fets @louisefets.bsky.social · 16/12/2024

Thank you! For the post, being a fab collaborator (on this very project) and friend, too! ♥️

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Louise Fets @louisefets.bsky.social · 16/12/2024

Really excited and grateful to receive this funding from @theaacr.bsky.social, which will allow Carmen and I to continue working on the molecular basis and consequences of heterogeneous #PARPinhibitor distribution in #ovariancancer ...first paper on this hopefully coming soon - watch this space!

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