Niels Riksen

Niels Riksen discovered that Western diet and metabolic syndrome components including oxidized LDL and high glucose induce maladaptive trained immunity in monocytes that promotes both atherosclerosis and cancer-associated inflammation through persistent epigenetic activation of inflammatory gene programs. His work demonstrated that metabolic risk factors shared between cardiovascular disease and cancer converge on trained immunity pathways, providing a unifying mechanism for their comorbidity. He investigates pharmacological approaches to reverse pathological trained immunity while preserving beneficial anti-tumor immune training.