Welcome to the guest seminar by Professor Jo Van Ginderacther!

Speaker: Professor Jo Van Ginderacther, Brussels Center for Immunology
Title: Epigenetic imprinting of monocytes and tissue-resident macrophages by infectious disease and cancer
Location: Lauren 2 lecture room, Medisiina D
Time: April 16, 10-11 am
Host: InFLAMES Group Leader Maija Hollmén, MediCity Research Laboratory, University of Turku

About the speaker:

Professor Jo Van Ginderachter is Lab Director of the Myeloid Cell Immunology lab at VIB (Center for Inflammation Research) and of the Brussels Center for Immunology lab at Vrije Universiteit Brussel. He has a long-standing expertise in macrophage biology, tumour immunology and applications of nanobodies. He published over 100 peer-reviewed articles and 4 book chapters on these topics. Most of the grants of the Van Ginderachter lab are dealing with the characterization of tumour-associated macrophages and dendritic cells, several of which deal with nanobody-mediated imaging or therapy.

Example publications:

Depleting IL1R2+ Tumor-Infiltrating Regulatory T Cells with an ADCC-Prone Nanobody Construct Boosts the Efficacy of Anti-PD-1 Immunotherapy.
Arnouk SM, Kancheva D, Van Damme H, Courtoy GE, Mora Barthelmess R, Van Craenenbroeck J, Lebegge E, Elkrim Y, Assaf N, Heremans Y, Murgaski A, De Groof TWM, Clappaert E, Debraekeleer A, Brughmans J, Blancke G, Kiss M, Forsyth R, Waelput W, Boon L, Devoogdt N, Stortelers C, van Boxel N, Dombrecht B, Vereecke L, Vincke C, Raes G, Laoui D, Van Ginderachter JA.Cancer Res. 2025 Dec 1;85(23):4681-4700. doi: 10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-24-3095.

Epigenomic preconditioning of peripheral monocytes determines their transcriptional response to the tumor microenvironment.
Kiss M, Halasz L, Hadadi E, Berger WK, Tzerpos P, Poliska S, Kancheva D, Gabriel A, Mora Barthelmess R, Debraekeleer A, Brughmans J, Elkrim Y, Martens L, Saeys Y, Daniel B, Czimmerer Z, Laoui D, Nagy L, Van Ginderachter JA.Genome Med. 2025 Jul 23;17(1):82. doi: 10.1186/s13073-025-01511-y.

Imaging of tumor-associated macrophage dynamics during immunotherapy using a CD163-specific nanobody-based immunotracer.
Lauwers Y, De Groof TWM, Vincke C, Van Craenenbroeck J, Jumapili NA, Barthelmess RM, Courtoy G, Waelput W, De Pauw T, Raes G, Devoogdt N, Van Ginderachter JA.Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2024 Dec 24;121(52):e2409668121. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2409668121. Epub 2024 Dec 18.

Macrophages are metabolically heterogeneous within the tumor microenvironment.
Geeraerts X, Fernández-Garcia J, Hartmann FJ, de Goede KE, Martens L, Elkrim Y, Debraekeleer A, Stijlemans B, Vandekeere A, Rinaldi G, De Rycke R, Planque M, Broekaert D, Meinster E, Clappaert E, Bardet P, Murgaski A, Gysemans C, Nana FA, Saeys Y, Bendall SC, Laoui D, Van den Bossche J, Fendt SM, Van Ginderachter JA.Cell Rep. 2021 Dec 28;37(13):110171. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2021.110171.