Sjoerd van der Burg Group
Immunotherapy; T-cells; immune regulation; clinical trials
Our Focus
The white blood cells of the immune system play an important role in the outgrowth and elimination of cancer cells. Modulation of the immune system to treat cancer, also called immunotherapy, is currently regarded as the most innovative cancer therapy. My group “Experimental Cancer Immunology and Therapy” focuses on the factors of host-tumor interactions that determine the success and failure in immune control of cancer with the final aim to improve immunotherapeutic strategies against solid tumors.
We employ in vitro models, animal models and patient cohort studies to study the different molecular mechanisms that underlie the attraction, activation, suppression and antitumor efficacy of the different types of tumor-infiltrating immune cells, in particular T cells and myeloid cells. We want to understand how this is influenced by the tumor-immune context, the type of therapy (including chemotherapy, radiotherapy and targeted therapy) and the success of therapy achieved (cure, partial regression, stable disease).
Finally, we perform small clinical trials for first-in-man proof that newly designed strategies to positively influence the antitumor response work as we intended through comprehensive state-of-the-art immune monitoring.
