Rate My Professor Ilaria Elia

Ilaria Elia is an Assistant Professor Tenure Track in the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, Faculty of Medicine at KU Leuven, where she has served as head of the Laboratory of Metabolic Regulation of Cell Function since August 2021. She obtained her Master's degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology from the University of Pisa in 2012, graduating cum laude with dissertation research conducted at KU Leuven on the role of recombinant protein Magic-F1 in stem cell differentiation toward skeletal muscle. Elia completed her PhD in 2017 at the VIB-KU Leuven Center for Cancer Biology under Prof. Sarah-Maria Fendt, focusing on the metabolic requirements of breast cancer cells during metastatic colonization. From 2018 to 2021, she pursued postdoctoral research at Harvard Medical School in the laboratories of Profs. Marcia C. Haigis and Arlene Sharpe, advancing her expertise in immunometabolism and T cell function in cancer.

Elia's research centers on the metabolic cross-talk between tumor cells and immune cells, particularly CD8+ T cells, within the tumor microenvironment. Her lab explores how local nutrient microenvironments drive metabolic reprogramming, T cell exhaustion, and immunotherapy resistance in primary tumors and metastases, including projects on compartmentalized NAD+ metabolism, metabolite competition in melanoma-derived lung and liver metastases, and strategies to reprogram exhausted T cells via metabolic nodes. She has published seminal works such as 'Breast cancer cells rely on environmental pyruvate to shape the metastatic niche' (Nature, 2019), 'Tumor cells dictate anti-tumor immune responses by altering pyruvate utilization and succinate signaling in CD8+ T cells' (Cell Metabolism, 2022), 'Formate supplementation enhances anti-tumor CD8+ T cell fitness and efficacy of PD-1 blockade' (Cancer Discovery, 2023), and 'The metabolic cross-talk between cancer and T cells' (Trends in Biochemical Sciences, 2023). Elia has garnered major awards including the ERC Starting Grant for the SpaceMet project investigating spatial heterogeneity of tumor and CD8+ T cell metabolism in liver metastasis (2025), the FEBS Excellence Award (2022), the Beug Foundation Metastasis Prize (2023), EMBO and CRI fellowships, and various travel grants.