Our Focus
PI3K signalling towards FOXO transcription factors is the major focus of my research. FOXO transcription factors are known to mediate a diverse set of biological outputs, and my work is dedicated to some of these. First, FOXOs regulate cell death and at present work is focused on ferroptosis an Iron-dependent form of cell death (manuscript in preparation). With respect to understanding regulation of transcriptional activity through members of the FOXO class, I collaborate with Dr Jurian Schuijers on the role of condensate formation in controlling transcriptional activity in general. I also started collaborating with Dr Lucas Kaaij (UMCU) on investigating the role of FOXOs in early development by using gastruloids combined with D-tag mediated degradation of FOXOs and other transcriptional regulators.
Funded by Oncode we started working on single cell proteomics and during 2023 we obtained our first results that are now published in collaboration with Prof. Michiel Vermeulen (Stelloo et al Cell stem cell 2024). We have put a lot of effort in making this work both from the scientific as well as managerial site operational and this enabled us to start collaborations in 2024. We started several collaborations (Tanenbaum, van Oudenaarden) and also our own projects using scProteomics.
About Boudewijn Burgering
My Research
Boudewijn Burgering is a Professor in Signal Transduction and head of the Center Molecular Medicine (CMM) and head research of the section Molecular Cancer Research of the CMM at the UMCU. Boudewijn is also head of the Graduate School Cancer, Stem Cells and Development (CSnD), a visiting scientist to NCBS/InStemm Institute in Bangalore and a visiting Professor Second College of Clinical Medicine of Guangzhou, China. Boudewijn is running together with Prof Dr Nanda Verhoeven Duif the Utrecht Centre for Medical Metabolomics that provides services and expertise to researchers that wish to study metabolism within the context of their research. Also at MCR proteins@work is located, which provides support in proteomics for the UMCU.
The past work mainly focused on the function of proteins within signaling networks and to decipher the molecular lay-out of signaling networks. This has led to important and highly cited discoveries e.g. PKB/AKT downstream of PI3Kinase (together with Prof. Paul Coffer). Current work has expanded towards other signaling networks most importantly the involvement of metabolism in signaling and cell fate determination but also redox-signaling in collaboration with Dr Tobias Dansen.
Boudewijn is an elected member of EMBO and reviewer for the ERC, has been rewarded a VICI grant in 2002 and participates in the Dutch consortium on cancer research (CGC.nl).
Awards
2002: awarded VICI grant
Key Publications
Burgering, B. M, & Coffer, P. J. (1995). Protein kinase B (c-Akt) in phosphatidylinositol-3-OH kinase signal transduction. Nature, 376(6541), 599.
Essers, M. A., de Vries-Smits, L. M., Barker, N., Polderman, P. E., Burgering, B. M., & Korswagen, H. C. (2005). Functional interaction between ß-catenin and FOXO in oxidative stress signaling. Science, 308(5725), 1181-1184.
Kops, G. J., Dansen, T. B., Polderman, P. E., Saarloos, I., Wirtz, K. W., Coffer, P. J., ... & Burgering, B. M. (2002). Forkhead transcription factor FOXO3a protects quiescent cells from oxidative stress. Nature, 419(6904), 316.
Kops, G. J., de Ruiter, N. D., De Vries-Smits, A. M., Powell, D. R., Bos, J. L., & Burgering, B. M. (1999). Direct control of the Forkhead transcription factor AFX by protein kinase B. Nature, 398(6728), 630.
ISO 690.Medema, R. H., Kops, G. J., Bos, J. L., & Burgering, B. M. (2000). AFX-like Forkhead transcription factors mediate cell-cycle regulation by Ras and PKB through p27 kip1. Nature, 404(6779), 782.
Rodríguez-Colman, M. J., Schewe, M., Meerlo, M., Stigter, E., Gerrits, J., Pras-Raves, M., ... & Verhoeven-Duif, N. (2017). Interplay between metabolic identities in the intestinal crypt supports stem cell function. Nature, 543(7645), 424.
Van der Horst, A., de Vries-Smits, A. M., Brenkman, A. B., van Triest, M. H., van den Broek, N., Colland, F., ... & Burgering, B. M. (2006). FOXO4 transcriptional activity is regulated by monoubiquitination and USP7/HAUSP. Nature cell biology, 8(10), 1064.
Members
| Boudewijn Burgering Oncode Investigator | Can Gülersönmez Post Doc | Cassio Flemming Phd Student |
| Charlotte van Gelder Post Doc Researcher | Huanjie Huang PhD Student | Edwin Stigter Metabolomics Facility Manager |
| Fried Zwartkruis Associate Professor | HarmJan Vos Senior Scientist | Jurian Schuijers Investigator |
| Lydia Smits Technician | Tambinh Bui PhD Student | Paula Sobrevals Alcaraz Data Analyst |
| Robert van Es Technician | Susan Zwakenberg Technician | Tianshu Gui Phd Student |