Awa Gassama

After completing a bachelor’s degree in Health & Life Sciences, I obtained my master’s degree in Oncology at the VU University Medical Center. During this program I was trained in the immunotherapy lab of prof. dr. Tanja de Gruijl, where I studied immunosuppression in the tumor microenvironment and tumor-draining lymph nodes in cervical cancer patients. In March 2019, I joined the group of Gerben Borst for my graduation internship, working on a collaborative project with the group of Leila Akkari.

Here, my project focused on the interplay between high grade gliomas and the immune system in the context of radiotherapy. In March 2020, I continued working on this project as a PhD student, thereby focusing on optimizing the (immunological) response to radiotherapy and immunotherapy in high grade gliomas.