Benoit J. Van Den Eynde

Biography

BENOIT J. VAN DEN EYNDE is expert in tumor immunology (MD, PhD) and I am currently Director of the Brussels Branch of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research and co-director of the de Duve Institute. I am also Full Professor of Immunology at the Université catholique de Louvain in Brussels and I train young scientists, including PhD students, medical students and postdoctoral Fellows form all over the world. I serve as member of several national and international scientific committees and editorial boards, and I am a full member of the Belgian Royal Academy of Medicine. I initially identified, together with Thierry Boon, the first tumor rejection antigen naturally expressed by mouse tumors. I subsequently identified a number of human tumor antigens and studied their processing. This led to the discovery of peptide splicing by the proteasome and of novel proteasome subtypes.  I also described how tumors resist immune rejection by catabolizing tryptophan, through the expression of indoleamine dioxygenase (IDO) or tryptophan dioxygenase (TDO). I am also co-founder of iTeos Therapeutics, a biotechnology company based in Gosselies (Belgium) launched in 2012 as a spin-off of Ludwig Cancer Research. Its activity consists in developing small molecule immunomodulators for cancer treatment. Its first compound, an IDO inhibitor, will soon enter clinical testing in cancer patients.

Research Interest

tumor immunology