Jeanette Leusen, PhDAssociate Professor, Head Immunotherapy Group at UMC UtrechtSpeaker
Profile
Dr. Jeanette Leusen, received her PhD in 1995 at the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Since then she investigates therapeutic antibodies and their modes of action, both in vitro and in vivo using several mouse models. Within the immunotherapy group, a unique panel of Fc receptor knock-out and transgenic animals has been developed and obtained over the past decades (e.g. Immunity, 2001; Cancer Research 2006, J.Immunol, 2014). Supported by grants from KWF and AICR, Dr. Leusen’s lab has generated and characterized a new transgenic mouse reconstituting FcR expression but incapable of ADCC, the so-called NOTAM mouse. New insights were obtained for both antibody therapy (Cancer Research, 2010, J. Immunol 2016, but also FcR-induced antigen presentation (J. Immunol 2014, J. exp. Med 2017).
Last but not least, Dr. Leusen strongly believes in IgA as a novel class of antibody for treatment of both malignant and infectious diseases. In 2013 she published for the first time in vivo efficacy of IgA antibodies (EMBO MM, 2013), reviewed in Mol Imm 2015, more studies were published in Cancer Immunol Res 2015, MABs 2015, Cancer res 2015 and 2016, and more will follow soon.