This year's Baillet Latour Biomedical Award goes to Doctor Jingjing Zhu (Institut de Duve - UCLouvain) for her research into the mechanisms of immunosuppression in cancer and the development of innovative new strategies in immunotherapy to improve efficacy.

Jingjing Zhu is a Doctor of Science and in 2013 obtained a PhD in Human Genetics at KU Leuven, Belgium.  She currently heads her own research group in the Immunity and Cancer Department at the Institut de Duve.

The title of the research project to be funded by the Award: “Exploring agonists of the alpha2-adrenergic receptor agonists as a new therapeutic approach for cancer immunotherapy”.

What is it all about?

Cancer immunotherapy boosts the body's immune defenses against cancer, and offers interesting clinical results, but remains limited to a sub-group of cancer patients. The discovery of new therapeutic targets should increase response rates and the clinical efficacy of immunotherapy. Recent research by Jingjing Zhu has highlighted the potent anti-tumor activity of α2-adrenergic receptor agonists  (α2-AR) agonists, formerly used to treat arterial hypertension. These molecules induce immune rejection of tumors, including those resistant to current immunotherapy approaches.

This research project aims to further explore the therapeutic potential of α2-AR receptor agonists. The aim is to identify the immune cells involved in the anti-tumor effect of α2-AR agonists, to explore the impact of these agonists on the tumor microenvironment and to understand their mechanism of action, in particular by studying the signaling pathways potentially involved, such as the cAMP-PKA pathway and the STING pathway.

The results of this research should make it possible to identify new molecules that will eventually enable clinical trials to validate new treatments likely to bring enormous hope to cancer patients for whom immunotherapy is currently ineffective. 

Jingjing Zhu, who was chosen by an international jury from 19 nominations, describes receiving the award as “a great honor”. “It inspires me to strive for excellence in my field. This research sheds light on cancer research. We bring hope to patients waiting for treatment", she declared. For her part, Queen Mathilde underlined the excellent level of medicine and research in Belgium. “The objectives are far from being achieved,” she lamented. “This annual support from the Baillet Latour Fund opens up new perspectives.”