Wim Adriaensen MSc, PhD

Wim Adriaensen (MSc 2010, double Ph.D. 2015) is an assistant professor heading the Clinical Immunology Unit in the Department of Clinical Sciences (Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium). He was trained in immunology and medical research during his double-PhD in medical sciences and public health (Academic?Centre for?General?Practice,?KULeuven, and Institute of Health and Society,?UCLouvain, Belgium) on the clinical impact of the aging of the immune system and its complex relationship with cytomegalovirus for patient and vaccination outcomes in octogenarians in Belgium; that he performed partly at the University of Tübingen, Germany. He started at ITM as a clinical trial scientist (Clinical Trial Unit, ITM) to gain more affinity with clinical trials and project management on several infectious diseases in low-resource settings. In 2016, he founded a clinical immunology research line within the unit of neglected tropical diseases at ITM with a particular dedication to human cellular immunity and its translation to bench side diagnostic and therapeutic applications, which he still leads to date. After building expertise in visceral leishmaniasis (VL) and establishing a strong network of relevant research, patient, and drug development organizations, he acquired a competitive post-doctoral fellowship (Research Foundation Flanders) on the synergistic impact of HIV co-infection on T-cell suppression in VL-HIV patients. Besides establishing single cell and spatial transcriptomic pipelines at ITM, his research is focused on the development of alternative host-based test-of-cure assays and predictive biomarkers for patient/treatment outcomes.