Prof. dr. Debbie van Baarle is professor in Immunology of Vaccinations at the University Medical Center Groningen since September 2020 and at the Center for Infectious Disease Control (CIb) at the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) since 2017. She is an immunologist with specific expertise in the immune response to viral infections for which she received the Beijerinck Virology Premium in 2007. Her main research interest is to identify critical features of the T-cell response associated with ‘protection’ from viral infection or disease progression in order to improve vaccination strategies. More recently, she is focusing on understanding changes in immune health as a consequence of specific exposures in relation to vaccine responsiveness, identifying biomarkers of vaccination response and finding ways to improve immunity to vaccination in (older) risk groups. For the latter she is leading an H2020 IMI project on vaccination strategies for elderly (VITAL) which includes both induction of proper immunity to vaccinations, identification of biomarkers as well as communication on these strategies. Furthermore she is a leading immunologist in several large multicenter ZonMW funded clinical COVID19 vaccine studies in patient groups. Debbie van Baarle is (co-)author of over 200 scientific papers published in peer-reviewed, international journals (H-index: 50), which have been cited ≈ 8000 times. She successfully supervised 24 PhD students and currently has 6 PhD students in training, 2 postdocs and 2 technicians.
