May 2023 – Monthly portrait of a young researcher

Vilde Pedersen

Vilde Pedersen holds an MD degree from the University of Bergen, Norway. Prior to embarking on her PhD, she completed her first-year residency in Pathology at Rigshospitalet. Her current research focuses on the identification and profiling of malignant cells in the periphery of glioblastomas. The periphery of glioblastomas refers to the outermost region surrounding the central core of the tumor, where tumor cells migrate into the brain parenchyma. These cells, found in the periphery, cannot be removed by surgery and are responsible for recurrence in most patients.

The aim of the PhD project is to identify phenotype changes and potential targets in infiltrating tumor cells within the peripheral region of glioblastomas. By combining histological information with spatial transcriptomic data, the phenotype of infiltrating cells and mechanistic insight into the interplay between tumor cells, tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs), and astrocytes will be obtained. Vilde is currently working on the data set and will soon be ready for validation of target candidates.

Validation will be performed using a cohort with samples from the tumor periphery that Vilde is working on establishing. The aim is to collect over 100 samples. The presence and cellular localization of target genes will be histologically validated at the protein level through immunofluorescence multiplexing and multispectral imaging with Vectra Polaris.

Vilde presented her PhD project plan at the 4th Multidisciplinary International FEBS/Institut Curie Lecture Course on Computational Systems Biology of Cancer in 2021, where she received the prize for Best Poster Presentation. Additionally, she presented the initial part of her PhD project titled ‘Distribution and Tumor Cell Proximity of Immune Cells in the Tumor Core, Infiltration Zone, and Periphery of Glioblastomas’ at the 27th Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuro-Oncology in Tampa, US. She is also scheduled to present these results at the EANO 2023 conference in Rotterdam.

Research focus:

• Tumor periphery
• Tumor microenvironment
• Spatial RNA-sequencing

WP relation:

WP3 – Identification and profiling of malignant, migratory cells

Vilde Pedersen’s PhD supervisors include Professor, Senior consultant neuropathologist Bjarne Winther Kristensen, postdoctoral researcher Signe Regner Michaelsen, and Associate Professor Joachim Weischenfeldt