Douwe Bosma

Research

My scientific interests are focused around the intriguing battle our immune system has with pathogens and cancer. In this light, my PhD research focuses on understanding the interactions between dendritic cells (DC) and T cells during T cell priming. We investigate how these interactions shape the T cell response and whether we can modulate these interactions to improve the CD8+ T cell responses towards cancer or pathogens. Furthermore, we investigate the signals that DCs receive, both prior to and during T cell priming, and how these signals shape the DC fate, as well as what effect these signals have on the resulting T cell response.   

Curriculum vitae

I obtained my Master’s degree in Infection and Immunity at Utrecht University in 2019. During my Master’s education, I performed a 9 months internship in the group of Dr. Victor Peperzak at the University Medical Center Utrecht, where I worked on enhancing the cytotoxic potential of genetically modified T cells in cancer immunotherapy. Furthermore, I performed an 8 months internship in the group of Prof. Christian Münz at the University of Zurich, where I investigated the T cell immune control of the oncogenic virus Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) in humanized mice and T cell immune control of KSHV-associated B cell malignancies. In October 2019, I started my PhD project in the group of Prof. Jannie Borst at the LUMC.