Timo van den Berg appointed as endowed professor of Immunotherapy

Biologist Timo van den Berg has been appointed as endowed professor of 'Immunotherapy, particularly antibody-based therapy' at Radboud university medical center / Radboud University. He develops and improves cancer immunotherapy based on an immune checkpoint he discovered. Additionally, he investigates who benefits from immunotherapy, how T-cells respond, and why resistance sometimes develops.

About fifteen years ago, Timo van den Berg and his research group at Sanquin Research discovered an interaction between immune cells and tumor cells. They found that SIRPα on immune cells binds CD47 on tumor cells, and that this binding prevents the immune cell from eliminating the tumor cell. Such an interaction is called an immune checkpoint, and this particular binding functions as a brake on the immune system’s ability to fight cancer.

Releasing the brake

Van den Berg then investigated exactly how this mechanism works. He also observed that the binding between the immune cell and the tumor cell can be blocked. This can be done using specific antibodies—checkpoint inhibitors—that bind specifically to CD47 or SIRPα. This removes the brake, allowing the immune cell to eliminate the tumor cell much more effectively. Van den Berg: 'This is very promising for cancer therapy. It can, in principle, work for various types of cancer, especially when combined with other therapies.'

Currently, there are more than a hundred clinical trials worldwide investigating the blocking of CD47 or SIRPα in different types of cancer and in combination with various drugs. Since 2021, Van den Berg has been working at the Nijmegen-based company Byondis BV, where he developed and is testing an antibody against SIRPα: 'We’re currently using it in a first clinical trial involving patients with lymphoma, in combination with Rituximab. It’s a privilege to be part of the entire process from the initial discovery to application in patients, and the first results are promising.'

Selecting patients

As a professor, Van den Berg aims to further develop this type of cancer therapy and disseminate knowledge about it. He also wants to better understand how such therapies work. 'We know that virtually all immunotherapy is only truly effective only in a minority of patients. There's a lot of variation between individuals', Van den Berg explains. 'Why do some people respond well and others not at all? Ideally, you want to know this in advance so you can select patients for specific therapies.'

Moreover, it turns out that inhibitors of the CD47-SIRPα interaction stimulate not only the innate immune system—which Van den Berg has studied extensively—but also the adaptive immune system. 'That works via T-cells, but we don’t yet fully understand how. This is very interesting because good activation of T-cells could not only slow cancer in patients but potentially even cure it.' Finally, Van den Berg wants to investigate why resistance to this type of therapy sometimes develops.

At Radboudumc, Van den Berg will collaborate closely with Jolanda de Vries and Annemiek van Spriel within the Medical BioSciences department. He will also be involved in teaching.

Career

Timo van den Berg graduated cum laude in Biology from the University of Amsterdam (UvA) and obtained his PhD in 1992 from VUMC with a thesis titled 'Microenvironments in lymphoid tissues'. He then specialized further in immune cells as a researcher at VUMC and the Institute for Molecular Medicine in Oxford. In 2007, Van den Berg joined Sanquin Research in Amsterdam, where he worked as a researcher and head of the Phagocyte Laboratory and the Blood Cell Research department.

In 2017, Van den Berg was appointed professor of Immunotherapy at VUMC in Amsterdam, focusing on the role of innate immunity in cancer. Since 2021, he has served as Senior Director of Immuno-Oncology at Byondis BV, where he works on cancer immunotherapy. He holds multiple patents, has received numerous grants, and is an author of over 180 scientific publications. His appointment as part-time professor (0.2 FTE) at Radboudumc / RU is funded by Byondis BV and began on April 1, 2025, for a period of three years.

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