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Immunologist who showed T cells recognise cancer neoantigens, the basis for personalised vaccines and TCR therapies.
Ton Schumacher is Senior Group Leader at the Netherlands Cancer Institute (NKI-AvL) and Professor at Leiden University. His specialisms are T-cell immunology, neoantigens and TCR discovery. His work demonstrated neoantigen-specific T-cell responses in melanoma patients, showing that T cells recognise cancer neoantigens, and he developed technologies for TCR discovery. His Science review on neoantigens in cancer immunotherapy set out the basis for personalised neoantigen vaccines and TCR-T cell therapies. He co-founded Neogene Therapeutics, and his publications are listed on PubMed.
| Title | Journal | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Neoantigens in cancer immunotherapy | Science | 2015 |
| NICHE-2: a month of nivolumab and ipilimumab before surgery clears mismatch-repair-deficient colon cancer in most patients | New England Journal of Medicine | 2024 |
| NICHE-2: a single dose of ipilimumab and two of nivolumab before surgery clears dMMR colon cancer in most patients | New England Journal of Medicine | 2024 |
| Rohaas 2022: the first randomised trial of TIL therapy, against ipilimumab, in advanced melanoma | New England Journal of Medicine | 2022 |
For colon cancer that is mismatch-repair deficient (about 10-15% of colon cancers, more in older patients), a single short course of immunotherapy before surgery is now a reasonable standard and is far more effective than chemotherapy, which has little effect in this subtype. It requires testing every colon cancer for mismatch repair at diagnosis, before surgery. Whether some patients can safely skip surgery, as in dMMR rectal cancer, is the next question.
This trial supplied the randomised proof that was missing for TIL therapy and showed academic centres can run cell-therapy phase 3 trials without industry. It supports TIL as a standard option after checkpoint inhibitor failure in melanoma and underpinned reimbursement in the Netherlands. The comparator, ipilimumab, is itself only modestly effective in this setting, and overall survival did not differ significantly.
Shares Select patients for cell therapy by whether their tumour holds reactive T cells, Leiden University Medical Center, Rohaas 2022: the first randomised trial of TIL therapy, against ipilimumab, in advanced melanoma, NICHE-2: a month of nivolumab and ipilimumab before surgery clears mismatch-repair-deficient colon cancer in most patients.
Shares Rohaas 2022: the first randomised trial of TIL therapy, against ipilimumab, in advanced melanoma, Netherlands Cancer Institute (NKI-AvL).
Shares Neoantigen, TCR-T cell therapy, Personalised neoantigen (mRNA) vaccines.
Shares NICHE-2: a month of nivolumab and ipilimumab before surgery clears mismatch-repair-deficient colon cancer in most patients, Netherlands Cancer Institute (NKI-AvL).