prof. Bart Vandekerckhove (MD, PhD)
CRIG group leader
Director of GMP Unit Cell therapy (CellGENTherapies), Cord blood Bank and Hematopoietic Stem cell Bank, UZ Gent
Professor Department of Clinical Chemistry, microbiology and immunology
Research focus
- Generation of effective CAR/TCR transgenic T cells
- Enabling phase I trials with cell and gene therapy medicinal products
- Neoepitope discovery in human cancer
- RNA vaccines and ATMPs
Research team
- Postdoctoral fellows
- dr. Stijn De Munter (PhD)
- dr. Kaiyi Zhang (PhD)
- Doctoral fellows
- Laurenz De Cock
- Lore Billiet
- Eva Pascal
- dr. Lucas Deseins (MD)
- Amin Zolfaghari
- Thomas Michiels
- dr. Robrecht De Vos (MD)
- Glenn Goetgeluk - technician
- GMP unit
- Louise De la Mane, QP pharmacist
- Valerie Redant, PhD
- Joline Ingels, Ms
- Pascal Van Der Meulen, MS
- Bo Coppens, GMP technician
- Sofie Leyman, GMP technician
- Saskia De Smet, GMP technician
- Nele Lootens, Quality assurance
Key publications
- Knocking out CD70 rescues CD70-specific nanoCAR T cells from antigen-induced exhaustion. Cancer Immunol Res. 2024 Jun 14. doi: 10.1158/2326-6066.CIR-23-0677. Online ahead of print. PMID: 38874582
- Neoantigen-targeted dendritic cell vaccination in lung cancer patients induces long-lived T cells exhibiting the full differentiation spectrum. Cell Rep Med. 2024 May 21;5(5):101516. doi: 10.1016/j.xcrm.2024.101516. Epub 2024 Apr 15.PMID: 38626769 Free PMC article. Clinical Trial.
- Single-cell profiling identifies a novel human polyclonal unconventional T cell lineage. J Exp Med. 2023 Jun 5;220(6):e20220942. doi: 10.1084/jem.20220942. Epub 2023 Mar 20. PMID: 36939517; PMCID: PMC10037106.
- Small-scale manufacturing of neoantigen-encoding messenger RNA for early-phase clinical trials. Cytotherapy. 2022 Feb;24(2):213-222. doi: 10.1016/j.jcyt.2021.08.005. Epub 2021 Oct 22. PMID: 34696961.
- The transcription factor ETS1 is an important regulator of human NK cell development and terminal differentiation. Blood. 2020 Jul 16;136(3):288-298. doi: 10.1182/blood.2020005204. PMID: 32350509.
- Rapid and Effective Generation of Nanobody Based CARs using PCR and Gibson Assembly. Int J Mol Sci. 2020 Jan 30;21(3):883. doi: 10.3390/ijms21030883. PMID: 32019116; PMCID: PMC7037261.
- Safe eradication of large established tumors using neovasculature-targeted tumor necrosis factor-based therapies. EMBO Mol Med. 2020 Feb 7;12(2):e11223. doi: 10.15252/emmm.201911223. Epub 2020 Jan 8. PMID: 31912630; PMCID: PMC7709889.
- The human fetal thymus generates invariant effector γδ T cells. J Exp Med. 2020 Mar 2;217(3):jem.20190580. doi: 0.1084/jem.20190580. PMID: 31816633; PMCID: PMC7062527.
Contact & links
- UZ Gent, MRB2, ingang 38, C Heymanslaan 10, 9000 Gent
- website of CellGENTherapies (GMP unit)