Gasdermin E in Glioblastoma: a Friend or Foe?

The research is to aim to establish an immunological stratification based on an in depth research addressing the multi-modal immunological profile of GBM patients, which allows a rational and proper assignment of GBM patients with highest probability of responding to an adjustable, personalized tumor vaccine in a future clinical trial. Especially the natural propensity or susceptibility to different types of immunogenic cell death is expected to be a major stratification parameter. A newly, upcoming therapy, called sonotherapy ( ultrasound based induced opening of the blood brain barrier and modulation of the immune microenvironment ) will be investigated in a phase III clinical trial at UZ Leuven starting in 2021. The ICD inducing capacities of sonodynamic therapies will be a subject of investigation in the second half of the PhD trajectory.