Dr Julie Decock holds a Master in Biomedical Sciences from the Free University of Brussels (VUB), Belgium. She was awarded a Ph.D. in Medical Sciences in 2003 from the Catholic University of Leuven (KULeuven), Belgium. Her PhD dissertation focused on the clinical utility of tumor and circulating proteases as novel biomarkers for breast cancer. Dr Decock undertook a postdoctoral position at the University of East Anglia (UEA), UK where she studied the role of several protease families in different cancer models. She joined QBRI in 2013 as a postdoctoral researcher and was promoted to scientist in 2016. In addition, she holds an assistant professor position at the College of Science and Engineering of the Hamad Bin Khalifa University, where she is involved in the MSc and PhD teaching program of the divisions of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, and Genomic Precision Medicine.
Her research interest lies in the tumor microenvironment, in particular the immune microenvironment, and how the interaction with tumor cells can be exploited as prognostic biomarkers and/or therapeutic targets for immunotherapy. Her research efforts are focused on breast cancer, in particular triple negative breast cancer in which she also investigates Cancer Testis Antigen expression and the mechanisms driving or supporting tumor progression.
Dr Decock has 26 peer-reviewed scientific articles with almost 800 citations and has an h-index of 15. She serves on the editorial board of Frontiers in Oncology and the Journal of Translational Medicine. She is also a member of various grant review boards, nationally and internationally.