John Haanen
Cancer immunotherapy
Immunotherapy has resulted in a major breakthrough in the treatment of now large number of cancers. Activation of the endogenous immune response by immune checkpoint inhibitors, which release the brakes of immune cells has become standard of care for up to 14 types of cancer. Immunotherapy by infusing activated and/or highly cancer specific T cells to cancer patients is in development and will hopefully help to improve outcomes of patients further within the next couple of years.
Our goal is to find biomarkers that help select patients that are likely to respond to immune checkpoint inhibitors and develop novel strategies for cell therapy.