Publications by authors named "L Vandenberk"

Brucellosis, caused by a facultative intracellular gram-negative coccobacillus, is one of the most common zoonotic infections worldwide. Very rarely, brucellosis can cause periprosthetic joint infections (PJI). In this case-based literature review, we summarize the current medical literature regarding Brucella PJI, with the aim to raise awareness among clinicians, particularly in non-endemic areas.

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Glioblastoma (GBM) is resistant to most multimodal therapies. Clinical success of immune-checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) has spurred interest in applying ICIs targeting CTLA4, PD1 or IDO1 against GBM. This amplifies the need to ascertain GBM's intrinsic susceptibility (or resistance) toward these ICIs, through clinical biomarkers that may also "guide and prioritize" preclinical testing.

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Innate immune sensing of dying cells is modulated by several signals. Inflammatory chemokines-guided early recruitment, and pathogen-associated molecular patterns-triggered activation, of major anti-pathogenic innate immune cells like neutrophils distinguishes pathogen-infected stressed/dying cells from sterile dying cells. However, whether certain sterile dying cells stimulate innate immunity by partially mimicking pathogen response-like recruitment/activation of neutrophils remains poorly understood.

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Dendritic cell (DC)-based immunotherapy has yielded promising results against high-grade glioma (HGG). However, the efficacy of DC vaccines is abated by HGG-induced immunosuppression and lack of attention toward the immunogenicity of the tumor lysate/cells used for pulsing DCs. A literature analysis of DC vaccination clinical trials in HGG patients delineated the following two most predominantly applied methods for tumor lysate preparation: freeze-thaw (FT)-induced necrosis or FT-necrosis followed by X-ray irradiation.

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The promise of dendritic cell (DC)-based immunotherapy has been established by two decades of translational research. Of the four malignancies most targeted with clinical DC immunotherapy, high-grade glioma (HGG) has shown the highest susceptibility. HGG-induced immunosuppression is a roadblock to immunotherapy, but may be overcome by the application of T helper 1 (T(H)1) immunity-biased, next-generation, DC immunotherapy.

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