Mirjam Heemskerk is professor of Cancer Immunotherapy and head of the Laboratory for Experimental Hematology at the LUMC. She leads a translational research group focused on developing novel cellular immunotherapies for patients with cancer. In 2013, partly under her leadership, the first phase I/II TCR gene therapy study for hematological malignancies after allogeneic stem cell transplantation was started (EudraCT number 2010-024625-20). Two new phase I/II TCR studies are currently being set up within the Hematology department, one for patients with acute myeloid leukemia (NPM1-TCR), the other for patients with multiple myeloma (BOB1-TCR). In 2011, Heemskerk received the Jan Swammerdam prize for the most talented young researcher from the Dutch Association for Hematology. She is treasurer of the Dutch Society for Immunology. She is also a member of the scientific advisory board of KIKA. In 2022, Heemskerk was appointed professor at the faculty of medicine with the teaching assignment "Immunotherapy of cancer, in particular the development of cell therapy".

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Mirjam Heemskerk is professor of Cancer Immunotherapy and head of the Laboratory for Experimental Hematology at the LUMC. She leads a translational research group focused on developing novel cellular immunotherapies for patients with cancer. In 2013, partly under her leadership, the first phase I/II TCR gene therapy study for hematological malignancies after allogeneic stem cell transplantation was started (EudraCT number 2010-024625-20). Two new phase I/II TCR studies are currently being set up within the Hematology department, one for patients with acute myeloid leukemia (NPM1-TCR), the other for patients with multiple myeloma (BOB1-TCR). In 2011, Heemskerk received the Jan Swammerdam prize for the most talented young researcher from the Dutch Association for Hematology. She is treasurer of the Dutch Society for Immunology. She is also a member of the scientific advisory board of KIKA.

In 2022, Heemskerk was appointed professor at the faculty of medicine with the teaching assignment "Immunotherapy of cancer, in particular the development of cell therapy".

Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy for cancer uses the patient's immune system to attack the cancer cells. The immune system is supported or made extra active by the treatment.

Immunotherapy in which patients are treated with their own immune cells that have been processed in the laboratory, shows promising results for patients with blood cell cancer such as leukemia and lymphoma. The immune cells are equipped in the laboratory with new recognition structures, which, like a kind of antenna, help the immune cells to recognize and destroy the cancer cells. These recognition structures can be either chimeric antigen receptors (CAR) or T cell receptors (TCR). In order to develop an effective cell therapy for every cancer type and every patient, many cancer-specific recognition structures are necessary. In addition, we know that cancer cells can escape single therapies and it is important that cancer cells are attacked in multiple ways at the same time. My research focuses on developing personalized cell therapies that are formulated depending on the characteristics of the cancer and the patient (NWA question 85), i.e. a tailor-made living medicine.

Academic career

Mirjam Heemskerk studied Biomedical Sciences at Leiden University, where she graduated in 1990. She did her PhD research at the Department of Immunology of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Utrecht University. She obtained her PhD in 1995 with the thesis 'Cellular immunity against murine coronaviruses; Role of MHC class II restricted cytotoxic T lymphocytes'. From 1994 to 1998 she was a postdoc at the Immunology department of the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam, where she further specialized in human T cell development and the development of cellular immunotherapies. In 1998 she started at the Hematology department of the LUMC and with the help of a Gisela Thier Fellowship from the LUMC and various KWF grants, she was able to start her own research group. Since 2001 she has been a staff member of the Hematology Department and since 2008 also head of the Laboratory for Experimental Hematology. In 2011 she received the Jan Swammerdam Prize for talented young researchers from the Dutch Society for Hematology. In 2022, Heemskerk was appointed professor at the faculty of medicine with the teaching assignment "Immunotherapy of cancer, in particular the development of cell therapy". Her inaugural lecture was in 2023 and was entitled “Viability of the living medicine”

Publications