Joeri Aerts

During his graduate studies in Biochemistry, Joeri Aerts became intruiged by the complexity and intertwining of the different components of the immune system.  After a PhD in hematology, he became fascinated by how the immune system can fight cancer and decided to take up a postdoctoral position in the Surgery Branch at the National Institutes of Health, where he was initiated in tumor immunology under the guidance of Dr. Suzanne Topalian.  

After that, he spent a short but productive period at the Barts Cancer Institute in London under the guidance of prof. Iain McNeish, studying oncolytic adenoviruses.  

In 2004, he came back to Belgium and started first as a postdoc, then as an assistant professor in the Laboratory for Molecular and Cellular Therapy, led by prof. Kris Thielemans, where he continued working on tumor immunology and immunotherapy, but also developped an interest in HIV immunotherapy.  

Since 2015, he runs his own group within the NAVI lab.  Here he tries to bring together many of the topics he studied before, with as central themes tumor immunology, with a focus on enhancing the immunogenicity of oncolytic viruses, HIV immunology, with projects studying the role of NK cells in the control of the viral reservoir and the development of novel RNA based therapeutic vaccines.  Since it became clear that a dysregulation of the immune system lies at the root of the recent outbreak of COVID-19, his lab is now also studying the role of various immune components such as complement and NK cells in COVID-19 pathology.  

Currently, six PhD students are working on these topics, mostly in national and international collaborations.  Joeri Aerts also teaches various courses, where he tries to convince young students of the beauty of science in general and immunology in particular.