De Duve Institute
The de Duve Institute (DDI) was founded in 1974 by Christian de DUVE when he received his Nobel Prize. It is a multidisciplinary biomedical research institute, hosting 30 laboratories of the Faculty of Medicine of the Université catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain), as well as the Brussels branch of the Ludwig Institute. The 270 researchers and technicians study basic biochemistry, genetics, development, cancer immunology, virology, cytokines and their intracellular signalling pathways.
Pierre van der Bruggen
Pierre van der Bruggen is professor at the Faculty of Medicine of UCLouvain, and leads a research group at the de Duve Institute dedicated to studying the T-cell responses to cancer. In 1991, Prof van der Bruggen identified the first human gene, MAGE-1, that codes for a tumor antigen recognized by cytolytic T lymphocytes. Over the years, he and his group identified several other tumor antigen-coding genes and defined a large number of antigenic peptides, which have been used in clinical trials. Since, efforts have been developed to accurately monitor T-cell responses to cancer vaccines – including MAGE-3-specific regulatory T-cell responses. Since 2015, Prof van der Bruggen’s group studies the immunosuppressive effects of human MDSC from blood and tumors on the functions of T-cells. More recently, researchers of his group decided to systematically analyze the transcription factors implicated in CD8 T-cell dysfunction in human cancers.
Within INCITE, Prof van der Bruggen is responsible for extending the artificial immune niche to human cells, and evaluate the anti-tumoral functions of human T-cells that were expanded within the artificial immune niche.
Céline Duhamel
Céline Duhamel earned her Master’s degree in biomedical sciences from Université Catholique de Louvain (Brussels). Her Master’s thesis investigated the role of the ErbB2 protein in pancreatic cancer. In January 2020, she joined the laboratory of Pierre van der Bruggen as a research associate. She has been involved in several projects, involving T cell culture, immunological assays, flow cytometry and production of lentiviruses. She was involved in the study of the role of IRF4 in human CD8 T cell exhaustion. In the INCITE project, Céline is responsible for the expansion of human T cells in the artificial immune niche and for testing T cell functions.
Thibault Hirsch
After completion of his Master’s degree in Université de Strasbourg, Thibault Hirsch completed in 2022 his PhD in the laboratory of Pierre van der Bruggen, at the Université Catholique de Louvain. There, he studied the role of the transcription factor IRF4 in human CD8 T cell function and exhaustion. Since February 2023, Dr. Hirsch works as a post-doc in Pierre van der Bruggen laboratory, where he studies human neutrophils in cancer patients and their immunosuppressive effects on T-cell functions. He is an active member of the EU COST Action Mye-InfoBank. In addition, he studies the role of the transcription factor IRF8 in human CD8 T cell function.
Within INCITE, Dr. Hirsch is responsible for expanding human T-cells within the artificial immune niche and test their anti-tumoural functions in vitro.
