Prizes, grants and appointments

ZonMw grants to investigate knowledge gaps regarding corona vaccinations

Two LUMC projects focusing on immunity after corona vaccinations receive a ZonMw grant. One project, led by Jutte de Vries of Medical Microbiology, investigates protection against breakthrough infections after vaccination and after natural infection. Simon Jochems of Parasitology wants to better understand how infection and vaccination lead to immunity.

Breakthrough infections
Cellular immunity in particular is thought to play an important role against breakthrough infections with viral variants. In the BREAK COVID study, researchers will map more than 40 blood cellular biomarkers in individuals with and without breakthrough infections. The aim is to identify 3 to 5 key markers that are predictive of protection against breakthrough infections. The results of this study may contribute to the optimal design of vaccination policies. The group will receive 500,000 euros and is a collaboration between the departments of Medical Microbiology, Immunology, and Biomedical Data Sciences. The company Innatoss will contribute to the execution.

Immunity in the nose
The NASI-COVAC project receives €385,000 to better understand how infection and vaccination lead to immunity against SARS-CoV-2. Researchers from the departments of LU-CID, Haematology and Immunology are collaborating within this project. The aim is to map immunity not only in the blood, but also in the nose. Using minimally-invasive methods, immune cells can be collected from the nasal mucosa. In laboratory animal models, the importance of different immune cell populations for protection against infection will then be investigated.

KWF grant for improved therapy for cutaneous T-cell lymphoma

Patients with CD30 positive cutaneous T-cell lymphoma (CD30+ CTCL) generally respond well to antibody therapy, but due to side effects, this treatment is often discontinued prematurely. Kees Tensen from the Department of Dermatology will use a €230,000 KWF grant to investigate whether new therapeutic antibodies work better.

Current treatment consists of Brentuximab Vedotin (BV), an antibody to which a toxin is attached. The antibody targets the CD30 molecule that these patients have on their cancer cells. After binding of the antibody to the cancer cell, the toxin then causes the cell to be eliminated.
The dose in which BV is used is limited due to serious side effects. This is most likely because the toxin not only affects cancer cells, but also has an effect on other, healthy cells. To overcome this drawback, a new drug targeting CD30 has recently been developed by the company Tubulis (TUB-010). Experiments show that major disadvantages of BV with TUB-010 are largely negated.

"In this project, we want to determine whether TUB-010 is a suitable and better alternative than BV for the treatment of CD30+ CTCL," says Tensen. The results from the LUMC laboratory and those that Tubulis will obtain from clinical trials with Hodgkin lymphoma patients and TUB-010 will be used to determine whether a clinical trial for CD30+ CTCL patients can be started. LUMC's Department of Skin Diseases will then take a leading role in this.

EMBO long term fellowship for Quinten Ducarmon

Quinten Ducarmon recently received his PhD with honors from the Department of Medical Microbiology under the supervision of Prof. Ed Kuijper. He will continue his work on gut microbiome in Heidelberg, using an EMBO long term fellowship. He will remain partly involved at the LUMC to continue his work on Clostridioides difficile genome analyses.

It has been known for a number of years that certain bacterial species are found more frequently and in higher amounts in the gut microbiome of colon cancer patients, but little is known about how these bacteria contribute to the development of colon cancer. Researcher Ducarmon will develop and use a new computational methodology to conduct large-scale bacterial genomic analyses, with the goal of discovering bacterial factors that may contribute to colon cancer development. Complementary, there will be intensive collaboration with Prof. Eran Elinav's group at the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg, with the aim of confirming the findings in the lab.

EMBO-LTF
EMBO postdoctoral fellowships are a part of EMBO with the aim of supporting, worldwide, promising young researchers for a period of up to 2 years. In addition to financial support, the EMBO-LTF also provides access to the network of EMBO fellows, among other things.