PhD defence M.T.A. (Monique) de Beijer

Antigen Presentation in Hepatitis B Virus Infection and Hepatocellular Carcinoma
Promotor
Prof.dr. R.A. de Man
Co-promotor
Dr. S.I. Buschow
Co-promotor
Dr. A.M. Woltman
Date
Wednesday 5 Oct 2022, 10:30 - 12:00
Type
PhD defence
Space
Professor Andries Querido room
Building
Education Center
Location
Erasmus MC
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On Wednesday 5 October 2022, M.T.A. de Beijer will defend her PhD dissertation, entitled: ‘Antigen Presentation in Hepatitis B Virus Infection and Hepatocellular Carcinoma’.

Dissertation in short:

The Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infects cells of the liver, also called hepatocytes. Around 250 million people worldwide are chronically infected with HBV. Such persistent infection can lead to severe progressive liver damage and liver cancer. The type of liver cancer that HBV infection can contribute to is hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), which is also the most common type of liver cancer. Every year, about 820,000 people worldwide die as a result of long-term HBV infection.

Currently, there are few options to cure patients with chronic HBV or HCC. Over the years, however, it has become clear that the immune system has great potential to fight these diseases. This realisation gives promising options to develop therapies that stimulate the immune system to specifically attack infected or malignant hepatocytes. These kinds of 'antigen-specific immunotherapies' are based on the fact that an immune system T cell can recognise an infected or malignant hepatocyte by an HLA molecule on the hepatocyte in which a peptide (piece of HBV or tumour) is presented, after which this hepatocyte is attacked and cleared.

Nevertheless, it remains problematic to develop an antigen-specific immunotherapy that is effective in the majority of patients with HBV and/or HCC. This is due to several reasons:

  1. there are multiple genetic variations of HBV which can cause the virus to differ between patients.
  2. of the HBV epitopes (peptides that trigger an immune response) known so far, by far the majority bind a specific HLA molecule while the majority of HBV patients do not express this HLA molecule on body cells.
  3. there is insufficient knowledge about which HBV and HCC epitopes are presented in HLA molecules on the hepatocyte.

In short, the question is thus mainly which HBV- or HCC-derived peptides are visible to the immune system such that they lead to an immune response in the majority of patients. In this thesis, we mainly focused on this question to better understand the immune response against HBV and HCC and from there contribute to the development of effective antigen-specific immunotherapy.

More information

The public defence will begin exactly at 10.30 hrs. The doors will be closed once the public defence starts, latecomers can access the hall via the fourth floor. Due to the solemn nature of the ceremony, we recommend that you do not take children under the age of 6 to the first part of the ceremony.

A live stream link has been provided to the candidate.

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