Dr Klaartje Somers

Dr Klaartje Somers completed her PhD in immunology in Belgium before moving into biotechnology, where she held group and project leader roles focused on preclinical drug development from discovery through to IND filing across the fields of autoimmunity and oncology. She returned to academia in 2014, bringing her expertise in immunology, oncology and translational therapeutics to Children’s Cancer Institute in Sydney. She is now a Senior Scientist in the Experimental Therapeutics/Molecular Oncology group, where she leads research focused on developing new treatments for children with poor-outcome cancers.

Since then, Dr Somers has applied her background to preclinical models of childhood cancer to identify and advance novel therapeutic strategies, with a particular emphasis on immunotherapies and approaches that can be translated toward clinical trials. Her research has helped identify several new drug candidates and treatment approaches for high-risk childhood cancers, including strategies that act in part by enhancing anti-tumour immunity.

Her work has contributed to the clinical translation of the oncology drugs curaxin CBL0137 and the NAMPT inhibitor OT-82. Dr Somers has published 42 papers in leading journals including Leukemia, Science Translational Medicine and Clinical Cancer Research, is an inventor on five patent applications in autoimmunity and oncology, and has secured more than $5.2 million in research funding. Through her expertise in paediatric cancer biology, tumour immunology and translational therapeutics, she is committed to improving treatment options for children with aggressive cancers.