Benoit Van Den Eynde

Benoit Van den Eynde (MD, PhD) is an expert in tumor immunology. He is currently Director of Ludwig Cancer Research in Brussels and co-director of the de Duve Institute in Brussels.

He is Full Professor of Immunology at the Université catholique de Louvain in Brussels and trains scientists from all over the world in his laboratory. In 2016, he also became Professor in tumor immunology at the University of Oxford, where he started a new group at Ludwig Oxford. He serves as member of several national and international scientific committees and editorial boards, and is a full member of the Belgian Royal Academy of Medicine. His work has focused on the identification and characterization of tumor antigens recognized by CD8 T lymphocytes, a field that he has pioneered together with his mentor Thierry Boon. His study of the processing of such antigens led him to the discovery of peptide splicing by the proteasome and of novel proteasome subtypes. He also described how tumors resist immune rejection by catabolizing tryptophan, through the expression of indoleamine dioxygenase (IDO) or tryptophan dioxygenase (TDO), conducting the first proof-of-concept for the use of inhibitors of these enzymes for cancer therapy.