Elke De Bruyne (EDB) is a principal investigator at the VUB research group Hematology and Immunology (HEIM) that has >35 years research experience on the pathobiology of the plasma cell malignancy multiple myeloma (MM). The lab is internationally renowned for the syngeneic, immunocompetent murine 5TMM myeloma models and has developed a core facility for these models, allowing collaborations on an international scale. EDB was trained in Biomedical Sciences at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). In 2003, she joined the HEIM lab at VUB, where she conducted a PhD in multiple myeloma cell biology under the supervision of Profs. Van Camp and Vanderkerken. After completing her PhD training, she obtained a prestigious Junior and Senior Post-Doctoral FWO Fellowship position, allowing her to set-up her own research line in the HEIM lab, focusing on the epigenetic regulation of multiple myeloma cells within the bone marrow niche and evaluating the therapeutic and diagnostic potential of broad-acting epigenetic modulating agents (EMAs). Her team provided major contributions to the field of MM epigenetics, showing for the first time that the insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) promotes MM cell survival by epigenetically silencing the pro-apopototic Bcl-2 family member Bim and epigenetic silencing of the tumor suppressor RASSF4 unleashes RAS activity in MM. Together with the team of Prof. Moreaux (LMIT, Montpellier, France), her team was also the first to develop gene signatures to predict patient outcome and drug sensitivity to broad-acting EMAs. Since 2018, EDB holds a faculty position (Senior Research Professor) and supervises a growing team of researchers (6 PhD students). The current focus of her team is to identify key (epi)genetic defects involved in multiple myeloma progression and relapse and contribute to the rational design of new therapeutic modalities to combat myeloma cell drug resistance. For the latter, she recently started a joint project with Prof Zimmermann (KUL) exploiting the therapeutic potential of exosomes. EDB has been expert reviewer/chairperson on the Annual Meetings of the European Hematology Association (EHA) and American Society of Hematology (ASH) on several occasions and is panel member of the scientific committee of the Belgian cancer patient organization KomOpTegenKanker (KOTK) and FWO MED3 (FO mandate panel) since 2015 and 2020 respectively.