Darshak Bhatt

Priscilla Kinderman and Nadine van Montfoort at LUMC contributed their expertise in in vivo virotherapy models, validating our findings in a more complex, physiological setting. This was a truly collaborative effort, and I’m very proud to see it come together!

Laura Horvathova, during her master’s internship in Toos Daemen’s lab, developed a bottom-up in vitro system to precisely control macrophage frequency and phenotype in co-culture with target tumor cells. This enabled real-time tracking of viral infection and multiparametric immune activation.

The model predicted, and our experiments confirmed, that even partial tumor infection was sufficient to activate T cells, despite high macrophage presence.

Using computational modeling with @thijsjanzen.bsky.social & Franjo Weissing), we found that encoding IFN-γ into alphavirus replicons could overcome suppression by macrophage.

Alphavirus replicons encoding IFN-γ enhance cancer virotherapy by overcoming macrophage-mediated suppression Interference by tumor-associated macrophages may significantly reduce the efficacy of therapeutic viruses designed to infect cancer cells and activate…

Very glad to share my first last-author paper, now published in iScience! 🎉In this study, we addressed a key challenge in virus-based cancer therapy: macrophage-mediated suppression, which limits viral infection and restricts T cell activation in tumors.
Link: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Scientific mobility in microbiology – 10

This was a meaningful moment of introspection, looking back on 10 years of scientific mobility since I left India. Also fun to share my experience working across labs in France, Netherlands, and Brazil. Read here for the full story: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

A tricky thing about modern society is that no one has any idea when they don’t die.

Like, the number of lives saved by controlling air pollution in America is probably over 200,000 per year, but the number of people who think their life was saved by controlling air pollution is zero.

Here's the link to access the preprint for those interested

bsky.app/profile/thij...

When you grow yeast on yeast extract medium

Presenting our poster on programming oncolytic alphavirus replicons with immunogenic signals at the Dutch Annual Virology symposium #DAVS2025 in #sunny Utrecht 🌞

Friends! The science that we love is under threat. World-wide, there're forces seeking to make it corporate-like, focused on deliverables, or even the enemy of society. Take a stand & celebrate science & music! #theconferencetoendallconferences - Registration starts NOW!
woodstock.img.cas.cz

Thanks for the tag, great to see our preprint being discussed! Any feedback is welcome 👍😄

The embryologist Ernst Haeckel is famous for his maxim that “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny” and for sketchy imaging. While Haeckel figures prominently in #DevBiol, the Fifth Dalai Lama doesn’t. Perhaps he should, though. He scooped Haeckel by about 200 years.
#LongBibliography 🧵 1/14

Programming alphavirus with IFN-γ overrides the adverse effects of macrophages on oncolytic virotherapy https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.02.12.637841v1

Programming alphavirus with IFN-γ overrides the adverse effects of macrophages on oncolytic virotherapy Virus uptake by tumor-associated macrophages may significantly reduce the availability of oncolytic viruses for cancer cell infection and limit therapeutic efficacy. Through a computational model, we ...

Another great preprint out together with @darshakbhatt.com using OVRI!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

The collaborative project resulted in a publication on the role of extracellular vesicles in cancer virotherapy, with the mentoring of Luciana Andrade, Roger Chammas, and Toos Daemen. A summary of the project can be read here: c2po.usp.br/researcher-w...

📣🎓Fun time talking to #C2PO about my PhD experience between @uspoficial.bsky.social & @umcgroningen.bsky.social. It was great reflecting on how working in different places shapes one's approach to research, collaboration, & problem-solving. Check the full interview here: c2po.usp.br/c2po-intervi...

3/3 This work was carried out at the labs of Luciana Andrade and Roger Chammas at @uspoficial.bsky.social in Brazil, and with Toos Daemen in @umcgroningen.bsky.social . 🎉 Shout out to all the coauthors that contributed to a great team effort!

2/3 Key findings:
1. A single-round of infection with a recombinant alphavirus enables EV analysis without extracellular virus interference.
2. Oncolytic virotherapy alters EV cargo, including regulatory microRNAs.
3. EVs from infected cells reduce immune suppression.

Oncolytic alphavirus-induced extracellular vesicles counteract the immunosuppressive effect of melanoma-derived extracellular vesicles - Scientific Reports Scientific Reports - Oncolytic alphavirus-induced extracellular vesicles counteract the immunosuppressive effect of melanoma-derived extracellular vesicles

1/3 Happy to share one of the final chapters of my PhD on oncolytic virotherapy! This study explores how oncolytic virotherapy can impact the content and function of extracellular vesicles (EVs) from melanoma cells.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Funny cartoon of a person saying to the grim reaper “I’ve gotta check with work first”. Illustration drawn in simplistic line art style. By Amii Illustrates.

"Researchers are rewarded if their papers are highly cited or published in prestigious journals (...)

Conversely, developing and maintaining software, even if it supports a wide body of research or meets the needs of broad scientific communities, rarely results in similar opportunities."

1/23 Big news for the #ObenaufLab! So excited to finally share our new study providing another puzzle piece, why immunotherapy fails in many tumors, now out in @Nature 🧵👇 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A dust bunny 👇 from Studio Ghibli

🎉 Shout out to our awesome supervisors Franjo Weissing and Toos Daemen for their guidance 🙌, and to Thijs Janzen (@thijsjanzen.bsky.social) for developing this amazing computational model 💻👏.

Effects of virus-induced immunogenic cues on oncolytic virotherapy - Scientific Reports Scientific Reports - Effects of virus-induced immunogenic cues on oncolytic virotherapy

🥳Happy to share our article on oncolytic virotherapy and T-cell responses influencing outcomes. Key insights: timing of therapy, anticancer T-cell activity, and the diffusion of immune signals all play complex roles, sometimes reducing effectiveness. #Spatialmodel #oncolyticvirus #Stochasticity 💻🎉

🚨 Paper Alert!

"Six Personas to Adopt When Framing Theoretical Research Questions in Biology" guides research framing and debunks common misconceptions about theory.

royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

#ProcB #Biology #Ecology #Evolution

So. Incredibly. Cool.