We extend our warmest congratulations to Jingjing Zhu of the Brussels laboratories of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research on being named a laureate of the prestigious Baillet Latour Biomedical Award. The Award was formally presented to her by Queen Mathilde of Belgium during an official ceremony at the Academy Palace in Brussels on April 29, 2024. Given each year to just one researcher in Belgium, the award provides €1 million over 5 years to support a research project in one of five biomedical domains selected by the Baillet Latour Fund. This year’s domain was cancer and Jingjing was selected for the prestigious award by a jury of international experts. She will use the funding to build on a study she led with Ludwig Institute’s Benoît Van den Eynde and published in Nature last year showing that agonists of the alpha2-adrenergic receptor stimulate anti-tumor immunity through their effect on myeloid cells of the innate immune system. This means such drugs, which are already sold as anti-hypertensive medications, could be repurposed and tested as potential boosters of cancer immunotherapy. The proposal Jingjing submitted to win this very competitive prize—the cancer domain comes up only once every five years—will explore the mechanistic underpinnings of that effect.
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