Scientific Advisory Board

Ada Kruisbeek, Ph.D. previously served as Chief Scientific Officer at DCprime, which she founded in 2005. She has worked at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, USA, and previously held the position of Head of the Department of Immunology at the NKI-AVL (Netherlands Cancer Institute and Antoni van Leeuwenhoekziekenhuis Hospital) in Amsterdam. She is an Emeritus Professor of Immunology at VU University, Amsterdam where she also served as scientific director of the Life Sciences Center and the Technology Transfer Office of the VU.

Inge Marie Svane, MD, PhD, joins Immunicum’s Scientific Advisory Board with 25 years of research experience in cancer immunology and immunotherapy. With her focus of expertise on T cell based adoptive cell therapy and other cellular therapies, cancer vaccines and immune regulation, she has greatly contributed to the field of cancer immunotherapy. Since 2001 she has initiated more than 20 Phase I and II immunotherapeutic trials as sponsor or principle investigator and has served as investigator and co-investigator on numerous international clinical trials in collaboration with the pharmaceutical industry, primarily within the area of cancer immunotherapy. Dr. Svane also led the establishment and currently serves as Director of the Centre for Cancer Immunotherapy (CCIT), Herlev University Hospital at the University of Copenhagen. Inge Marie has served as Chair of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Scientific Committee on Immunotherapy and is author/co-author of more than 170 scientific publications including papers in Clinical Cancer Research, Cancer Research, Blood, Nature Immunology, Nature Biotechnology, Lancet Oncology, Immunology, Journal of Translational Medicine, PLOS ONE and Oncoimmunology, among others. 

Pawel Kalinski is a distinguished MD/PhD researcher with over 30 years of experience in the field of tumor immunology. Dr. Kalinski’s research focuses on cell therapies and the manipulation of tumor microenvironments with a strong focus on the biology of dendritic cells, T cells and tumor microenvironment-associated myeloid cells. Currently, Pawel holds the positions of Vice Chair for Translational Research, Department of Medicine; Director of Cancer Vaccine and Dendritic Cell Therapies, Center for Immunotherapy; Professor of Oncology; and Co-Leader, Tumor Immunology & Immunotherapy (TII) CCSG Program, at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center in Buffalo, NY, USA. His research has been featured in over 120 international publications. Dr. Kalinski is also a member of several prestigious organizations including the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer, American Association for Cancer Research, American Society for Clinical Investigation and the American Association of Immunologists and is a member of the editorial board of leading publications in the immuno-oncology field such as OncoImmunology and Journal for Immunotherapy of Cancer.

Sjoerd van der Burg, PhD, is a Professor in Experimental Cancer Immunology and Therapy at the Department of Medical Oncology of the Leiden University Medical Center and Senior Investigator at the Oncode Institute in The Netherlands. His group performs fundamental, translational, and clinical studies focusing on factors of host-tumor interactions that determine the success and failure of immune system control of cancer. Dr van der Burg has extensive experience in monitoring innate and adaptive immune responses and exploits this to guide the development of cancer therapies. He has a PhD in immunology from Leiden University.

Tanja de Gruijl, PhD, is a Professor of Translational Tumor Immunology and holds a Fenna Diemer Lindeboom Chair at the Amsterdam University Medical Center where she also heads the immunotherapy and immune monitoring lab. Her research ranges from preclinical studies to monitoring of Phase I-III clinical trials and includes topics such as the immune potentiation of tumor-draining lymph nodes and the tumor microenvironment, immunological arming of oncolytic adenoviruses, and nanobody-mediated targeting of Natural Killer T-cell subsets. Dr de Gruijl supervised the research that supported the foundation of DCprime. She has recently been elected to the board of directors of the Society for the Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC). Dr de Gruijl holds a PhD in tumor immunology from the VU Amsterdam.