Verdoes lab - Chemical Immunology

The immune system is directly or indirectly involved in health and many pathologies. The dissection of the molecular wheelwork of immunology and the design and synthesis of molecules to specifically intervene in these processes have a significant impact in science and healthcare. This highly interdisciplinary field will deliver new chemistry-based fundamental research- and diagnostic tools, as well as novel classes of immune interventions and combination therapies.

The primary objective of the Chemical Immunology lab is to design and synthesize molecularly defined chemical tools and precision medicine approaches to study and manipulate molecular immune cell mechanisms and function.

Targeted immunomodulation

The immune system is regulated via many molecular cues, checks and balances. Providing the correct set of cues at the right time to the right subset of immune cells in the correct environment is crucial to achieve the envisioned immune response. In many immune-mediated pathologies such checks and balances are hijacked contributing to local disease initiation and progression. Systemic counteraction of these hijacks often results in severe immune-related adverse events (irAEs). Molecular targeting approaches enable local immunomodulation while minimizing the risk of systemic irAEs.

Cancer could be considered an immune-mediated disease. Tumors hijack immunological control mechanisms such as immune checkpoints to prevent activation and cancer cell eradication by T cells. We aim to develop strategies for chemistry-based precision immunotherapy using small molecules, nanomaterials and antibody targeted approaches to i) induce antigen-specific immune responses, ii) to modulate specific immune cells, such as macrophages in the tumor microenvironment and iii) to monitor specific immune cell phenotype and function in vitro and in vivo. 

Our multidisciplinary research group combines chemistry, protein engineering and immunology to design, synthesize and functionally characterize molecules and formulations to understand or manipulate the immune system. We aim to achieve targeted immunomodulation for chemistry-based precision immunotherapy.