Radiation Biology Section

Laboratory of Radiation Biology and Tumor Immunotherapy

Prof. Dr. Gabriele Niedermann, M.D.

Head of the Radiation Biology Section

gabriele.niedermann@uniklinik-freiburg.de

Awards and Prizes Received by the Laboratory

Dr. Kateryna Onyshchenko, a former doctoral student in the Niedermann Research Group, Radiation Biology Section, at the Department of Radiation Oncology of the University Hospital, has been awarded the 2024 Dissertation Prize of the German Society for Radiation Oncology (DEGRO). The award ceremony took place on June 14 at the DEGRO Annual Congress in Kassel. The award recognizes her work titled “Systemic effects of the combination of radiotherapy with anti-PD-1 and CD122-directed IL-2/anti-IL-2 complexes or lenalidomide in mouse solid tumor models.” The prize is awarded annually to the best dissertation in the field of radiation oncology in Germany.
Dr. Ren Luo, a former doctoral student in the Niedermann Research Group, Radiation Biology Section at the Department of Radiation Oncology of the University Hospital, has been awarded the 2023 Dissertation Prize of the German Society for Radiation Oncology (DEGRO). The award ceremony took place on June 23 at the DEGRO Annual Congress in Kassel. The award recognizes his work titled “Use of platinum derivatives to enhance the radiation-induced abscopal effect in combination with anti-PD-1.” The prize is awarded annually to the best dissertation in Germany in the field of radiation oncology.
At its 23rd Annual Meeting, held in Berlin from June 15–18, 2017, the German Society for Radiation Oncology (DEGRO) awarded the Society’s Dissertation Prize to Dr. Michael Hettich (a former doctoral student in the Niedermann Research Group). He received the award for his dissertation titled “Combined immunoradiotherapy of B16 melanomas and immunoPET monitoring of the programmed death pathway.”
Best of ASTRO 2016. The American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) selected the submission “Positron Emission Tomography Imaging of the PD-1/PD-L1 Checkpoint in Naïve and Irradiated Tumor-Bearing Mice” by M. Hettich, F. Braun, and G. Niedermann for presentation at the annual meeting in September 2016 in Boston. In addition, the work was selected as a highlight and presented as part of the 2016 Best of ASTRO in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida (November 11–12, 2016). At this meeting, only the most relevant and influential submissions from the ASTRO meeting are discussed each year.
Best of ESTRO 2015. At its annual meeting in April 2015, the European Society for Radiotherapy and Oncology (ESTRO) honored the article “The Extent of Synergy between Tumor Gamma Irradiation and Checkpoint-Blocking or T Cell-Recruiting Antibodies” by Michael Hettich, Jayshree Lahoti, and Gabriele Niedermann as the highest-rated contribution in the radiation biology category.
Mobi Award 2015. Dr. Hua Jing (postdoc in the Radiation Biology Section of the Department of Radiation Oncology) received first prize at the 15th Meeting of the Interdisciplinary Network for Molecular Imaging, which took place in Freiburg from October 14–16, 2015, for her paper “Imaging and Selective Elimination of Glioblastoma Stem Cells with Theranostic Near-Infrared-Labeled CD133-Specific Antibodies.”

Selected Publications

Onyshchenko K, Luo R, Guffart E, Gaedicke S, Grosu A-L, Firat E, Niedermann G. 2023. Expansion of circulating stem-like CD8+ T cells by adding CD122-directed IL-2 complexes to radiation and anti-PD1 therapies in mice. Nat Commun 12:2087.
Luo R, Onyshchenko K, Wang L, Gaedicke S, Grosu A-L, Firat E, Niedermann G. 2023. Necroptosis-dependent immunogenicity of cisplatin: implications for enhancing the radiation-induced abscopal effect. Clin Cancer Res 2023 29:667-683.
Gkika E, Firat E, Adebahr S, Graf E, Popp I, Radicioni G, Lo SS, Nestle U, Nicolay NH, Niedermann G, Duda DG, Grosu A-L. 2023. Systemic immune modulation by stereotactic radiotherapy in early-stage lung cancer. NPJ Precis Oncol. 2023 2:24.
Wu Y, Zhou L, Zhang X, Yang X, Niedermann G, Xue J. 2022. Psychological distress and eustress in cancer and cancer treatment: Advances and perspectives. Sci Adv. 2022 25: eabq7982
Taromi S, Firat E, Simonis A, Braun LM, Apostolova P, Elze M, Passlick B, Schumacher A, Lagies S, Frey A, Schmitt-Graeff A, Burger M, Schmittlutz K, Follo M, von Elverfeld D, Zhu X, Kammerer B, Diederichs S, Duyster J, Manz MG, Niedermann G*, Zeiser R*. 2022. Enhanced AC133-specific CAR T cell therapy induces durable remissions in mice with metastatic small cell lung cancer. Cancer Lett. 22 10, 215697. * split senior authors
Watanabe T*, Firat E*, Scholber J*, Gaedicke S, Heinrich C, Luo R, Ehrat N, Multhoff G, Schmitt-Graeff A, Grosu AL, Abdollahi A, Hassel JC, von Bubnoff D, Meiss F, Niedermann G. 2020. Deep abscopal response to radiotherapy and anti-PD-1 in an oligometastatic melanoma patient with an unfavorable pretreatment immune signature. Cancer Immunol Immunother. 9:1823-1832. Split first authors
Yin L, Xue J, Li R, Zhou L, Deng L, Chen L, Zhang Y, Li Y, Zhang X, Xiu W, Tong R, Gong Y, Huang M, Xu Y, Zhu J, Yu M, Li M, Lan J, Wang J, Mo X, Wei Y, Niedermann G, Lu Y. 2020. Effect of Low-Dose Radiation Therapy on Abscopal Responses to Hypofractionated Radiation Therapy and Anti-PD-1 in Mice and Patients With Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys. 108:212-224.
Watanabe T, Gaedicke S, Guffart E, Firat E, Niedermann G. 2020. Adding Indoximod to Hypofractionated Radiotherapy with Anti-PD-1 Checkpoint Blockade Enhances Early NK and CD8⁺ T-Cell-Dependent Tumor Activity. Clin Cancer Res. 26:945-956.
Luo R, Firat E, Gaedicke S, Guffart E, Watanabe T, Niedermann G. 2019. Cisplatin Facilitates Radiation-Induced Abscopal Effects in Conjunction with PD-1 Checkpoint Blockade Through CXCR3/CXCL10-Mediated T-cell Recruitment. Clin Cancer Res. 25:7243-7255.
Jing H, Hettich M, Gaedicke S, Firat E, Bartholomä M, Niedermann G. 2019. Combination treatment with hypofractionated radiotherapy plus IL-2/anti-IL-2 complexes and its theranostic evaluation. J Immunother Cancer. 7:55.
De Ruysscher D, Niedermann G, Burnet NG, Siva S, Lee AWM, Hegi-Johnson F. 2019. Radiotherapy toxicity. Nat Rev Dis Primers. 5:13.
Zhang X, Niedermann G. 2018. Abscopal Effects With Hypofractionated Schedules Extending Into the Effector Phase of the Tumor-Specific T-Cell Response. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys. 101:63-73.
Hettich M, Braun F, Bartholomä MD, Schirmbeck R, Niedermann G. 2016. High-Resolution PET Imaging with Therapeutic Antibody-based PD-1/PD-L1 Checkpoint Tracers. Theranostics. 6:1629-40.
Hettich M, Lahoti J, Prasad S, Niedermann G. 2016. Checkpoint Antibodies but not T Cell-Recruiting Diabodies Effectively Synergize with TIL-Inducing γ-Irradiation. Cancer Res. 76:4673-83.

Alumni

Shruthi Prasad (former PhD student) at iTeos Therapeutics, Gosselies, Belgium
Michael Hettich (former PhD student and postdoc) - Scientist - Imaging, Cancer Immunotherapy at Roche, Basel, Switzerland
Xuekai Zhu (former postdoc)
R&D Director, Nanjing IASO Biotherapeutics
(until 2020: Research Associate Professor, Shanghai Institute of Advanced Immunochemical Studies, Shanghai)
Xuanwei Zhang (former PhD student)
Resident, Department of Thoracic Oncology, Cancer Center and State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu
Tsubasa Watanabe (former postdoc)
Kyoto University, Institute for Integrated Radiation and Nuclear Science, The Hakubi Project
Program-Specific Associate Professor
Hua Jing (former postdoctoral fellow)
Senior Manager, Innovent Biologics Inc., Suzhou
Elena Guffart (former PhD student)
Postdoc, Prinz Lab, Medical Center – University of Freiburg
Kateryna Onyshchenko (former PhD student)
Postdoc, Kissik Lab, Emory University, Atlanta
Ren Luo (former PhD student)
Postdoc, Department of Thoracic Oncology, West China Hospital, Chengdu