"Antigen processing and presentation mechanisms in human diseases"
Prof. Marianne Boes, Ph.D.
Associate Professor in Immunology,
University of Utrecht, Center for Translational Immunology,
Utrecht, the Netherlands
Host: Hannes Stockinger
The research of the lab of Marianne Boes explores mechanisms that drive immune recognition in disease, including cancer. It is becoming increasingly clear that many diseases have an inflammatory component to them that may be treatable by immune response modification. Cancer is one such disease that moreover touches on many aspects of immune recognition. In the models that she studies, she uses a reductionist approach. As far as translational research is concerned, Marianne focuses not only on diseases of limited complexity (primary immunodeficiencies presenting with autoinflammation), but also on conditions of increasing complexity (rheumatoid disorders) and cancer.
From 2003-2008, her laboratory was located at Harvard Medical School/Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, USA. Since 2008, her lab is located at the department of Paediatrics and Laboratory of Translational Immunology (LTI) at the UMC-Utrecht and Wilhelmina Children's Hospital. Research is supported financially by grants from the Science Fund of the Netherlands (NOW), the European Research Council (ERC) and industry partners. The Boes lab has longstanding collaborations with both basic and clinically oriented investigators at the UMC-Utrecht and Veterinary Medicine-UU. Several collaborative projects exist with labs elsewhere in Europe and in the USA. Marianne is faculty member of Educational Committee Life Sciences (EC-LS) for the Faculty of Medicine - Biomedical Sciences, and member of the Infection/Immunity Educational Committee, and coordinator of the Advanced Course in Immunology at UMC-Utrecht.