AstraZeneca Foundation Scientific Prize awarded to Prof. Dmitri Krysko for his innovative research in the field of cancer immunology

Together with FWO (Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek – Vlaanderen) and F.R.S.-FNRS (Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique), the AstraZeneca Foundation wants to bring science and society together and stimulate the social debate on the importance of clinical research. Annually this foundation awards four Scientific Prizes to researchers who have carried out important work in a specific therapeutic field. This year, one of the AstraZeneca Scientific Prizes was awarded to CRIG group leader Prof. Dmitri Krysko for his contribution in the domain of Cell therapy in Oncology (UGent-CRIG). The other laureates were Olivia Gosseries (rare diseases, ULiège); Saskia van der Oord (child mental health; KU Leuven) and Florence Schleich (telemedicine in respiratory and/or cardiometabolic disorders; ULiège).

The aim of prof. Krysko’s Cell Death Investigation and Therapy Laboratory at the Department of Human Structure and Repair at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences is to better understand the role of immunogenic cell death in cancer and to develop novel experimental cell-based cancer immunotherapy for glioma and melanoma. Immunogenic cell death is a specific form of cancer cell death characterized by the release of "danger molecules" capable of effectively activating anti-tumour immunity and therefore holds important therapeutic potential. In a very recent study of his group, which has been published in the highly ranked journal ‘Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer”, the authors identified that photosensitizing compounds, which are widely used in the clinics, when used in the photodynamic therapy are capable to induce immunogenic cancer cell death. You can access the article via this link.