Member info

• FACULTY:
  Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences
• DEPARTMENT:
  Department of Pharmaceutics
• RESEARCH GROUP:
  Biopharmaceutical Technology Unit
• FUNCTION:
  Full Professor
• WORK ADDRESS:
  Ottergemsesteenweg 460, 9000 Ghent, Belgium
• PUBLICATIONS:
  ORCID
• SUMMARY:
  Our lab leverages the power of chemistry, biotechnology and nanotechnology to engineer the immune system at better responding to internal threats such as cancer and external threats such as viral pathogens and lethal drug substances. In this context we aim to intervene at different levels in the process of innate immune activation, antigen presentation and the generation of adaptive immunity to clear or protect the host from a specific threat. On the level of the innate immune system, we design strategies to delivery immune-stimulatory drug molecules such as Toll like receptor agonists and STING agonists to innate immune cell subsets in lymphoid organs. We also develop approaches to mark the surface of cancer cells for recognition and killing by innate immune effector mechanisms. And we investigate how innate immune killing can be leveraged to mount a tumor-specific adaptive immune response. On the level of antigen presentation, we develop strategies to deliver subunit peptide, RNA and protein antigens as well as small molecule haptens, together with immune-stimulatory drug molecules to antigen presenting cells in lymphoid organs. In this context we investigate how to optimally prime and skew the immune system to optimally respond to a specific threat. On the level of the adaptive immune response, we design strategies that harness T cells to attack cancer cells more efficiently by alleviating multiple immune-suppressive hurdles that T cell encounter upon arrival in the tumor microenvironment and/or upon engaging into cancer cell killing.
• EMAIL:
  Br.degeest@ugent.be
• WEBLINK:
  https://brdegeest.wixsite.com/biopharmtech-degeest