Greater Boston
Scientific leader with a decade of industry experience in the fields of T cell Immunology, adoptive cell therapy (ACT), and neoantigen biology. Brought an adoptive T cell product from pre-clinical development into clinical testing. Authored numerous publications in top-tier scientific journals, presenter at public conferences, inventor on patents and contributing author to accepted regulatory filing. Strategic partner with experience in company build-out, funding, downsizing, acquisition and integration.
I worked as a PhD candidate in the lab of Ton Schumacher, Department of Immunology, The Netherlands Cancer Institute, Amsterdam, from October 2010 to October 2015, after receiving my PhD degree on June 1st, 2016. https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/handle/1887/39812 Cancer immunotherapy has shown clinical effectiveness over the recent years, especially in patients with a high mutational load in the tumor. Mutated epitopes, so called 'neo-antigens', are presented on the tumor and can be regarded as foreign by the immune system. In this thesis, the importance of neo-antigens in the anti-tumor response is explored. First, the characteristics of antigens that can be recognized on human tumors are described, with a specific focus on neo-antigens. Second, technologies are described to systematically analyze neo-antigen specific reactivity in patients with cancer. Third, I show that neo-antigen specific reactivity is a common phenomenon in the CD4 and CD8 T cell compartments of patients with melanoma. Finally, I discuss what the expected value of neo-antigens is in the context of personalized cancer-immunotherapy.
In the lab of Jeroen den Hertog I worked on the project: Conversion and extension and cardiac looping defects as a consequence of the ptpralpha1 mutation.