Thierry Boon
Thierry Boon Falleur ( born December 3, 1944 in Kessel-Lo ) is a Belgian immunologist and professor emeritus at the Université catholique de Louvain. He led from 1978 to 2010, the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in Brussels, but is still (as of 2012) a research group working there.
Boon completed his medical studies in 1965 at the Université catholique de Louvain from 1970 and earned a Ph.D. at the Rockefeller University in New York, where he remained as a postdoctoral fellow at first. In 1971 Boon as Director of Research at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique, before he joined as a lecturer in 1975 at the Université catholique de Louvain, where he received a full professorship in 1981.
Boon is one of the most decorated European cancer researchers. He is considered a leader in the field of cancer immunology. Boon able to identify tumor antigens that activate cytotoxic T- cells. He also was able to enlighten the structure of tumor antigens in mice and humans, including the MAGE family ( melanoma antigen) protein, tyrosinase and melanin A, thus the basis for a development of cancer immunotherapy has been placed.