Scientific Advisory Board
Prof. Chris Reutelingsperger
Chris Reutelingsperger is emeritus Professor of Biochemistry. He studied Biochemistry at the University of Utrecht and received his PhD degree from the Faculty of Medicine at Maastricht University in 1987.
During his PhD-research he discovered the anticoagulant protein annexin A5 and patented its use in antithrombotic therapy. He was awarded the 5-years Senior Fellowship of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences (KNAW) and conducted postdoctoral research at the Boehringer Ingelheim Institute für Arzneimittelforschung in Vienna and at the Cardiovascular Research Institute (CARIM) of Maastricht University. He discovered and patented the annexin A5 assay to measure apoptosis. Currently, the annexin A5 assay is used in research laboratories worldwide.
In 2009 he was appointed Professor of Biochemistry of Apoptosis at the Faculty of Health Medicine and Life Sciences of Maastricht University where he as PI supervised research on molecular and cellular mechanisms of vascular remodeling with a focus on cell death and inflammation. He published over 250 peer-reviewed scientific papers, which have been cited more than 36500 times (Source: Google Scholar).
He has extensive experience in both the academic and industrial sector and is (co-)inventor to 10 granted patents claiming certain applications of annexins and heparins in the laboratory and in the clinic. Currently he is CSO of PharmaTarget, a biotech company which he co-founded in 2006, and scientific advisor to Annexin Pharmaceuticals and Matisse Pharmaceuticals.
Tom Seijkens, MD, PhD
Tom Seijkens, completed his studies in Biomedical Sciences and Medicine at Maastricht University, The Netherlands, and obtained his PhD from the University of Amsterdam, where he investigated the role of immune checkpoint proteins in chronic inflammatory diseases. Since 2022, he has been working as a medical oncologist at the Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Hospital / Netherlands Cancer Institute, with a clinical and research focus on immune and cell therapies for solid tumors. His expertise includes treatments with immune checkpoint inhibitors, tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), T cell receptor (TCR)-modified T cells, and chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells.
Prof. Esther Lutgens
Esther Lutgens is a Professor of Medicine. She studied Medicine at the University of Maastricht, the Netherlands, and received an MD-PhD degree from the Faculty of Medicine at Maastricht University in 2001. After completing her postdoctoral research in the US, she continued her academic career within the Cardiovascular Research Institute Maastricht until 2011, after which she became a full Professor at the University of Amsterdam, and the Ludwig Maximilian’s University in Munich. Since 2022, she heads the laboratory of Experimental CardioVascular Immunology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, USA. Her laboratory studies the role of co-stimulatory and coinhibitory immune checkpoint proteins in atherosclerosis using single cell technologies and validation studies in conditional knock-out models to develop immune checkpoint-based therapies to combat cardiovascular disease (CVD).
