Veni grant for Kaspar Bresser
Kaspar Bresser, who works at Sanquin in Monika Wolkers' group and at Amsterdam UMC, has been awarded a Veni grant for his research into how T cells develop into cells that are better or worse at fighting diseases.
The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) announced this today. Researchers eligible for a Veni grant have "academic qualities that clearly exceed the norm," according to NWO. The Veni grant is intended to fund innovative scientific research and thus enable these researchers to develop as independent researchers.
The immune system must be carefully balanced. If it works insufficiently, it can lead to infections and cancer. If it works too hard, it leads to autoimmune diseases. Kaspar will use the Veni grant to investigate how T cells can develop in different directions:
- Hard-working T cells that are capable of destroying cancer cells or, in extreme cases, attacking the body's own tissue;
- Non-functional or exhausted T cells, which give beginning tumors a chance to grow;
- Memory T cells, which ensure immediate protection if a pathogen tries to strike again.
Which knobs should be turned?
With his research, he aims to determine which molecular factors are important in the production of proteins that influence a T cell's "choice" to develop in a specific direction. In this way, such factors can ensure that a T cell can produce a high level of proteins that can destroy cancer cells, or, conversely, dampen the immune response in its own tissues.
"By discovering which knobs to turn to steer T cells in the right direction, we could in the future develop new therapies to strengthen the immune system in cancer, slow it down in autoimmune diseases, or develop vaccines that primarily lead to immunological memory," Kaspar explains.
This research aligns with the research Kaspar has been pursuing in recent years. He has been working as a postdoc with Monika for almost three years now, and before that, he completed his PhD in Ton Schumacher's Cancer Immunology group at the Netherlands Cancer Institute (NKI). "I'm incredibly intrigued by how the immune system works. The question of why cells react in a certain way to certain stimuli is far from always clear. Why is a cancer cell effectively attacked by the immune system in some cases, and how does this eventually exhaust the T cells?"
"Once we have a better understanding of the central principles of T cell development, we'll also know who we can collaborate with to develop medications. And with that, we can ultimately help patients!"