News
This year’s online edition will take place Friday March 19, 2021 from 02.00 PM to 06.00 PM (CET).
Confirmed speakers include:
Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a devastating disease with a high mortality. Patients often need the immunotherapeutic effect of an allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HCT) to be cured. We have demonstrated that AML patients who are cured after allogeneic HCT develop AML-specific antibody responses. Some of these antibodies with broad reactivity against AML cells of patients have the potential to be further developed into therapeutic antibodies.
This year, six scientists receive the highest awards in Dutch science, the Spinoza Prize or the Stevin Prize. The researchers receive the award for their excellent, pioneering and inspiring work. While the Spinoza Prize focuses on scientific work and fundamental issues, the Stevin Prize primarily honors the social impact. The laureates will each receive 2.5 million euros. Sjaak Neefjes and Ton Schumacher are two of the awarded scientists.
On the 19th of May 2020, our dear colleague and friend Professor Dr. Huib Ovaa passed away at the age of 46. In the past year, after being diagnosed with prostate cancer, Huib underwent a variety of treatments. Always with his usual optimism. He continued to work as much as possible and tried to keep the burden of his fight against cancer away from the people around him.
We had been looking forward very much to meeting all of you at our next ICI Conference. Due to multiple cancellations, including some from speakers, and due to the expectation that more cancellations will follow due to the Corona Virus outbreak, we unfortunately have to cancel the upcoming 6th ICI Conference. We regret this decision very much. We will inform you within the next few weeks if the Conference will be held at a later date this year.
Executive Board member Prof. Carl Figdor has been awarded an ERC Advanced Grant of € 2.5 million.
In the ‘ARTimmune’ project, Carl Figdor focuses on the intriguing, novel idea of creating injectable synthetic lymph nodes to attack tumours more directly. His idea may have important implications for clinics. Currently, many cancer patients are failing to respond to immune therapy and new strategies are desperately needed.
Chemist Mario van der Stelt was appointed Professor of Molecular Physiology at the Leiden Institute of Chemistry with effect from 1 November 2017. On Friday October 19th 2018 he gave his inaugural lecture entitled Body's own marijuana: inspiration for drug research.
The full lecture (in Dutch) can be found here.
Prof. Hidde Ploegh has been appointed professor Chemical Immunology, in particular biochemistry of the immune system, at the LUMC. He will take on the Jon J. van Rood Chair effective as of September 1st.
Improved method for quality control of biopharmaceuticals
Apart from its illicit usage by top athletes, EPO is a medicine for patients who suffer from anemia. The production of this therapeutically-used EPO and similar biological medicines can now be taken to the next level through a method developed by researchers from Utrecht University, the Netherlands, and Copenhagen University, Denmark. Their method allows to discern and classify EPO variants they design and produce, finetuning their glycosylation content in the process. This is essential in the optimization of the production of EPO variants that benefit each patient best. The results of their study were published in Nature Communications on the 21st of August 2018.
ICI Executive Board member Albert Heck (Utrecht University) is to receive two international distinctions this summer for his work in biochemistry and mass spectrometry: the prestigious Sir Hans Krebs Medal and the Thomson Medal and Prize. 'It is a wonderful and special honour, especially since they are two completely different awards.'