Short bio

After completing my medical degree at the University of Amsterdam in 2019, I started as a resident at the department of internal medicine at the Flevoziekenhuis in Almere in the Netherlands. After a year working as a clinician, I started my PhD-trajectory at the Department of Infectious Diseases and the Department of Intensive Care at the Amsterdam UMC. My research focusses on the immune response and immunomodulation in severe infections. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, I combined my research with working as a resident for one day per week at the department of Intensive Care. Simultaneously I am working on my teaching qualification; this will enable me to combine clinical work, research and education in my future.

What is your focus as part of the ImmunoSep research?

My part of the ImmunoSep research is coordinating and executing the ImmunoSep in the Amsterdam UMC.

What makes ImmunoSep unique and innovative?

Treatments for sepsis have been studied extensively, but unfortunately many clinical trials have not been successful in demonstrating a benefit. Reason for the lack of benefit could be the use of a “one-size-fits-all” approach to immunotherapy, while sepsis is a clinically heterogeneous syndrome. This suggests that personalized immunomodulatory treatment tailored to an individual patient’s immune profile may be a more successful approach to treat patients, and this is exactly what the ImmunoSep trial is aiming for.

What difference will ImmunoSep make to patients developing sepsis?

Sepsis still causes almost 20% of all deaths worldwide and hopefully the ImmunoSep will be a step towards a more successful treatment for this serious condition.

What makes you most proud of working for ImmunoSep?

The ImmunoSep is an innovative clinical trial, showing that in a large international trial personalized approached can be implemented, and I am proud to be a part of this. Furthermore, the ImmunoSep consortium consists of researchers with a lot of experience in sepsis research and it is a unique and educational opportunity to be part of this consortium being a young researcher.

Publications

• Slim MA, Appelman B, Peters-Sengers H, et al. Real-world Evidence of the Effects of Novel Treatments for COVID-19 on Mortality: A Nationwide Comparative Cohort Study of Hospitalized Patients in the First, Second, Third, and Fourth Waves in the Netherlands. Open Forum Infect Dis. 2022 Nov 22;9(12):ofac632.

• Slim MA, van Mourik N, Dionne JC, et al. Personalised immunotherapy in sepsis: a scoping review protocol. BMJ Open. 2022 May 9;12(5):e060411.

Short bio Julie completed a PhD in implementation research in the field of digital pathology applications. After that, she started new implementation research within the field of oncology and infectious disease prevention at the department of IQ healthcare of the Radboud University Medical Center. Besides research, she is involved in educational activities, mostly focused at implementation science and qualitative research methods.

What is your focus as part of the ImmunoSep research? My focus within ImmunoSep research is the social science part of the project. As part of this, we investigate which (potential) barriers and facilitators are present for the implementation of personalized immunotherapy for sepsis patients. With this valuable insight, we can design an appropriate implementation strategy, to ultimately improve the implementation of the clinical trial results into clinical practice.

What makes ImmunoSep unique and innovative? For our research part, it is unique to explore implementation in such an early stage, i.e. parallel to effectiveness research of the innovation (in this case, personalized immunotherapy). This allows us to already consider potential barriers and facilitators for the future implementation of personalized immunotherapy for sepsis patients.

What difference will ImmunoSep make to patients developing sepsis? By exploring the implementation of personalized immunotherapy for sepsis patients in such an early stage, we aim to support healthcare professionals in implementing research findings into practice.

What makes you most proud of working for ImmunoSep? The diversity of experts of multiple countries working together within one project is something to be very proud of!

Short bio

I’m 33 years old and I finished my 5-year residency program in Internal Medicine at “Attikon” University General Hospital of Athens, Greece on December 2021 and since then, I work as a scientific associate in the 4th Internal Medicine Department at the same hospital. I’m also a member of the Hellenic Sepsis Study Group and I have been involved in several clinical studies so far.

What is your focus as part of the ImmunoSep research?

I am one of the sub-investigators at our study site with primary focus on finding suitable patients for our clinical trial, informing them about the Immunosep project, answering any questions they may have about the study protocol, any risk that is associated with their participation or about the procedures that will take place once they have agreed, and of course assessing them throughout the study observation period. We are there for them every step of the way, to ensure they get the best available care they deserve and concurrently promoting research safely.

What makes ImmunoSep unique and innovative?

Well, sepsis is the leading cause of in hospital-mortality with a devastated impact on the national healthcare systems. Even with the development of new antimicrobials the recent years or the implementation of widely accepted sepsis treatment guidelines, mortality rates are still very high. What is unique about the Immunosep trial is that we are taking a different approach by evaluating the patient’s immune system response against an invading pathogen and aim to categorize it into three different clinical states. The CoVID-19 pandemic has taught us that targeting a subpopulation of patients with distinct immune characteristics identified by a specific biomarker and treating them in a personalized manner, is a very efficient way of treatment that ultimately saves lives. So, ImmunoSep trial’s innovation is the exact same thing. If I could condense the whole meaning of this study into a sentence, I would say personalized immunotherapy in sepsis.

What difference will ImmunoSep make to patients developing sepsis?

Tremendous difference, because on top of the supportive care that every septic patient should be given, we will be able to evaluate its personalized immune response to this situation. Thereby, we can offer to our patient’s adjunctive immunotherapy based on their distinct clinical needs. Personalized therapy in sepsis has a huge potential in the future, just take a look into the new treatment options that are available for patients with cancer and the enormous improvement that has been made to their survival. As we learn in medical school, every patient is different. The more we learn about our immune system and how it works, the more efficient and exact we will be in our treatment.

What makes you most proud of working for ImmunoSep?

I am proud to be coworking with such an amazing group of great Medical Professors of the highest academic profile and their respective colleagues from different European countries that we all share the same ambition, to reduce sepsis mortality and save patients’ lives. I think teamwork is what brings innovation and results and I am just honored to participate in such a pioneer project and to add from my behalf a very small piece of accomplishment towards to our goal.

Publications

My two most recent publications are:

• Psarrakis C, Giamarellos-Bourboulis EJ. Advancements in the pharmacological management of sepsis in the elderly. Expert Opin Pharmacother 2023 May-Aug;24(10):1171-1187

• Hölle T, Rehn P, Leventogiannis K, Kotsaki A, Kanni T, Antonakos N, Psarrakis C, et al. Evaluation of the novel sepsis biomarker host-derived delta-like canonical notch ligand 1 - A secondary analysis of 405 patients suffering from inflammatory or infectious diseases. Int J Mol Sci 2023 May 23;24(11):9164

Short bio Nynke is a PhD student at the department of IQ healthcare of the Radboud University Medical Center. Her research focuses on the implementation of personalized immunotherapy for severe infectious diseases in practice.

What is your focus as part of the ImmunoSep research? My focus within ImmunoSep research is the social science part of the project. In this part, we investigate which (potential) barriers and facilitators are present for the implementation of personalized immunotherapy for sepsis patients. With this valuable insight, we can design an appropriate implementation strategy, to ultimately improve the implementation of the clinical trial results into clinical practice.

What makes ImmunoSep unique and innovative? For our research part, it is unique to explore implementation in such an early stage, i.e. parallel to effectiveness research of the innovation (in this case, personalized immunotherapy). This allows us to already consider potential barriers and facilitators for the future implementation of personalized immunotherapy for sepsis patients.

What difference will ImmunoSep make to patients developing sepsis? By exploring the implementation of personalized immunotherapy for sepsis patients in such an early stage, we aim to support healthcare professionals in implementing research findings into practice.

What makes you most proud of working for ImmunoSep? I am proud that, with our research, we can contribute to an optimal implementation of immunotherapy for sepsis patients.