The Eurolife Distinguished Lecture of Prof. Sjoerd van der Burg was the draw of this year’s Eurolife Autumn Symposium, hosted by the Medical Univesity of Innsbruck. The Symposium, titled Therapeutic Vaccines for Cancer welcomed presentations from renowned academics from the Medical University of Innsbruck and the Leiden University Medical Center and offered insights into cutting-edge research on immuno-oncology and cancer vaccination.

Following his presentation titled Therapeutic cancer vaccination in combination with modulators of the microenvironment to boost tumor specific T cell immunity, Prof. van der Burg was awarded the Eurolife Distinguished Lecture Medal as an act of Network’s appreciation of his achievements and contributions in science.

Prof. Sjoerd H. van der Burg, Ph.D. is a professor in the immunotherapy of cancer, with a special emphasis on immunomonitoring at the department of medical oncology of the Leiden University Medical Center where he leads the experimental cancer immunology and therapy group consisting of about 30 scientists and technicians. The aim of his program is to implement immunotherapy as treatment modality for patients with solid tumors. The program is focused on the exploration of key factors in host-tumor interactions that determine successes and failures in immune control of cancer in order to drive the improvement of immunotherapeutic strategies against solid tumors. The fundamental, translational and clinical studies in his group has led to insights in the role of the tumor immune microenvironment, immune suppression and escape in cancer progression and therapy resistance. Furthermore, it led to the development of a powerful therapeutic vaccine concept and an adoptive cell transfer strategy for the treatment of cancer.