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Tessa Kerre

Ghent University Hospital, BE
Biography

Prof. dr. Tessa Kerre is a hematologist, and is head of clinic at the Ghent University Hospital. After she got her PhD in medical sciences and specialised in internal medicine and hematology (the study of blood and blood disorders), and more specifically blood cancer and stem cell transplantation, she wanted to merge two of her passions and decided to start her own research in the field of immunotherapy, employing the immune system in the fight against cancer. At that moment (it’s 2006), immunotherapy had believers and non-believers, as the results at that time were variable. Being a believer, Tessa wanted to engage in research on immuno-therapeutical strategies, as she was convinced that this new strategy could be a way to treat and even cure cancers that were untreatable before. In 2013 the leading scientific magazine Science declared immunotherapy ‘breakthrough of the year’. Since then, immunotherapy is evolving quickly to truly change the field of cancer therapies. Tessa has co-authored more than 50 papers in international peer-reviewed journals, and she has given numerous talks at national and international conferences. Also for the layman public, she gives 10-15 talks every year, and she participates in science festivals for the broad public, such as Pint of Science, Day of Science, Flemish Biotech Day, Sound of Science. Tessa is academic secretary of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, and leads the Commission for Community Outreach at the faculty. One of Tessa’s other passions is making sure that her patients understand what she’s talking about, that they understand their disease and the treatment(s) they’re receiving: getting complex things explained in a simple way is an important task for a doctor. Immunotherapy is very complex and not easy to explain. From this need, the idea rose to develop Immuno-T (immuno-T.inmotion.care).

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