The vision and Team behind ImmuneWatch

ImmuneWatch group picture in the office featuring Kris Laukens, Sander Wuyts, Benson Ogunjimi, Max Van Houcke, Pieter Meysman and Tom Bosschaerts

Our story

ImmuneWatch’s core mission is to annotate the specificity of each T-cell receptor in a T-cell receptor repertoire.

This journey started at the University of Antwerp and Antwerp University Hospital in Belgium when immunologists teamed up with biodata scientists within the AUDACIS consortium. The team pioneered the first work on using machine learning for TCR-epitope specificity predictions. Meanwhile, this collaboration led to more than 30 publications in the field of computational immunology.

Based on this success, ImmuneWatch was founded as a spin-off company and has since then significantly improved the technology, establishing themselves as world leaders in the field of TCR-epitope predictions.

The Team

The ImmuneWatch team unites a diverse range of experts, all driven by a shared mission: Annotating the epitope-specificity of TCRs.

Entrepreneur and PhD in Bioscience Engineering with speciality in bioinformatics


Got his 10 minutes of worldwide fame when he found a bitcoin in synthetic DNA.

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Sander Wuyts, Co-founder and CEO of ImmuneWatch
Sander Wuyts, PhD
Co-founder & CEO

PhD in Bioscience Engineering with speciality in machine learning and immunoinformatics.

Chan Zuckerberg-initiative grantee for T-cell bioinformatics

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prof. Pieter Meysman, PhD
Co-founder & CTO

Biodata science and R&D manager in the life science industry.

PhD in Bioscience Engineering with speciality in infectious diseases and immunology.

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Tom Bosschaerts, PhD
Co-founder & COO

Professor in bioinformatics and biodata mining at Laukens lab.

Winner of the AstraZeneca Foundation 2021 Award for his work on heterogeneity of immune defenses to infections.

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prof. Kris Laukens, PhD
Co-founder & Board member

Associate Professor in Translational Immunology and paediatric rheumatologist at the Antwerp University Hospital

ERC Starting Grant awardee for modelling population T-cell responses

prof. Benson Ogunjimi, MD, PhD
Co-founder & Scientific Advisor

Machine learning expert with a new profound love for immunology

Developer of the immunoinformatics tool ClusTCR and a Live Tennis Scores app: Aced

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Max Van Houcke
Data Scientist

Immunopathologist with 20+ years in biotech, spanning corporate strategy and business development.

Built her TCR sequencing expertise at Adaptive Biotechnologies. Now Chief Business Officer at iOrganBio.

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Catherine Sanders, External Board Member at ImmuneWatch
Catherine Sanders, PhD
External Board Member

Scientific founder and former CTO of Multiplicom, one of Belgium's most successful biotech spin-outs.

Professor at the University of Antwerp for close to two decades. Now VP, Genomics Strategy at CellCarta.

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Jurgen Del Favero, External Board Member at ImmuneWatch
Jurgen Del Favero, PhD
External Board Member

Partnerships

ImmuneWatch is striving for excellence in its field and recognises the importance of strong strategic collaborations to achieve their goals.

Associated Partner in dIscOverNET

ImmuneWatch is a proud associated partner in the s a partner in the dIscOverNET project, led by Prof. Timon Vandamme at the University of Antwerp. dIscOverNET is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Doctoral Network that has been awarded funding by the European Commission in 2026. By combining complementary expertise across disciplines and sectors, this network will foster knowledge exchange, interdisciplinary training, and the development of cutting-edge solutions in the field of immune-driven therapies for the treatment of neuroendocrine tumors.

More info soon

Associated Partner in dIscOverNET

ImmuneWatch is a proud associated partner in the s a partner in the dIscOverNET project, led by Prof. Timon Vandamme at the University of Antwerp. dIscOverNET is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Doctoral Network that has been awarded funding by the European Commission in 2026. By combining complementary expertise across disciplines and sectors, this network will foster knowledge exchange, interdisciplinary training, and the development of cutting-edge solutions in the field of immune-driven therapies for the treatment of neuroendocrine tumors.

More info soon

Associated Partner in dIscOverNET

ImmuneWatch is a proud associated partner in the s a partner in the dIscOverNET project, led by Prof. Timon Vandamme at the University of Antwerp. dIscOverNET is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Doctoral Network that has been awarded funding by the European Commission in 2026. By combining complementary expertise across disciplines and sectors, this network will foster knowledge exchange, interdisciplinary training, and the development of cutting-edge solutions in the field of immune-driven therapies for the treatment of neuroendocrine tumors.

More info soon

Project partner in Yellow4FLAVI

Our scientific quest is to uncover the secrets of immunity conferred by the Yellow Fever virus YF17D vaccine. By deciphering these mechanisms, Yellow4FLAVI aims to lay the groundwork for the development of more effective and targeted flavivirus vaccines, addressing current and future health emergencies.

Launched at the start of 2024, ImmuneWatch will work together with:

Project partner in Yellow4FLAVI

Our scientific quest is to uncover the secrets of immunity conferred by the Yellow Fever virus YF17D vaccine. By deciphering these mechanisms, Yellow4FLAVI aims to lay the groundwork for the development of more effective and targeted flavivirus vaccines, addressing current and future health emergencies.

Launched at the start of 2024, ImmuneWatch will work together with:

Project partner in Yellow4FLAVI

Our scientific quest is to uncover the secrets of immunity conferred by the Yellow Fever virus YF17D vaccine. By deciphering these mechanisms, Yellow4FLAVI aims to lay the groundwork for the development of more effective and targeted flavivirus vaccines, addressing current and future health emergencies.

Launched at the start of 2024, ImmuneWatch will work together with:

Project partner in CAPTIVATE

CAPTIVATE, a new innovative European partnership to tackle hurdles in malaria vaccine development. With cutting-edge technologies and an unwavering commitment, the EU-funded CAPTIVATE project has the mission to create a next-generation malaria vaccine that targets multiple stages of the deadliest malaria parasite, P. falciparum.

Launched end of 2023, ImmuneWatch will work together with:

Project partner in CAPTIVATE

CAPTIVATE, a new innovative European partnership to tackle hurdles in malaria vaccine development. With cutting-edge technologies and an unwavering commitment, the EU-funded CAPTIVATE project has the mission to create a next-generation malaria vaccine that targets multiple stages of the deadliest malaria parasite, P. falciparum.

Launched end of 2023, ImmuneWatch will work together with:

Project partner in CAPTIVATE

CAPTIVATE, a new innovative European partnership to tackle hurdles in malaria vaccine development. With cutting-edge technologies and an unwavering commitment, the EU-funded CAPTIVATE project has the mission to create a next-generation malaria vaccine that targets multiple stages of the deadliest malaria parasite, P. falciparum.

Launched end of 2023, ImmuneWatch will work together with:

Quantoom Biosciences and the University of Antwerp.

Early 2023, ImmuneWatch entered into a public-private partnership with Quantoom Biosciences and the University of Antwerp. The goal of this project is to assess if a detailed analysis of the T-cell receptor response can be utilized to inform vaccine design and augment the vaccine development process. It is believed that the proposed methodology could reduce time and expenditures in the preclinical development process of vaccines. As a proof-of-concept, the team has chosen to work on a rabies vaccine candidate.

Quantoom Biosciences and the University of Antwerp.

Early 2023, ImmuneWatch entered into a public-private partnership with Quantoom Biosciences and the University of Antwerp. The goal of this project is to assess if a detailed analysis of the T-cell receptor response can be utilized to inform vaccine design and augment the vaccine development process. It is believed that the proposed methodology could reduce time and expenditures in the preclinical development process of vaccines. As a proof-of-concept, the team has chosen to work on a rabies vaccine candidate.

Quantoom Biosciences and the University of Antwerp.

Early 2023, ImmuneWatch entered into a public-private partnership with Quantoom Biosciences and the University of Antwerp. The goal of this project is to assess if a detailed analysis of the T-cell receptor response can be utilized to inform vaccine design and augment the vaccine development process. It is believed that the proposed methodology could reduce time and expenditures in the preclinical development process of vaccines. As a proof-of-concept, the team has chosen to work on a rabies vaccine candidate.

Find the epitope-specificity of your TCRs today