Onno Teng
Dr. Onno Teng, MD, PhD is a Nephrology clinician scientist at the department of Internal Medicine of the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC). He is head of the Nephrology outpatient clinic and coordinator of the Leiden outpatient clinic for Lupus, Vasculitis and Complement-mediated Systemic diseases (LuVaCs) which accommodates top-referral, multidisciplinary, tertiary care on a regional and national level. He also leads and coordinates a clinical, multidisciplinary pathway aimed at counselling and guiding a pregnancy wish of patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) or antiphosholipid syndrome.
Dr. Teng conducts a translational research program in the area of autoimmune glomerulonephritis related to systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and ANCA-associated vasculitis (AAV). His major goals are to find new therapeutic interventions and innovative approaches for immunological monitoring (‘immunomonitoring’) for patients with SLE and AAV. His research activities are therefore divided in two main areas: ‘novel treatment strategies’ and ‘innovative immunomonitoring’. Both areas are closely related because the search for novel treatment options in SLE and AAV almost simultaneously requires the need for new immunomonitoring tools. Immunomonitoring in SLE and AAV patients helps us to better understand a) the underpinning immunological pathophysiology and b) the beneficial effects of novel treatments on autoimmunity. In addition, immunomonitoring can potentially help doctors and patients when choosing a personalised treatment strategy, to define response to treatment on a clinical as well as an immunological level and to predict prognosis of the disease.
In the area of novel treatment strategies Dr. Teng conducts several investigator-initiated trials:
– He leads the SynBIoSe study (NCT02284984) which is the first, single center study to investigate the combination treatment of rituximab and belimumab in refractory SLE patients.
– He leads a single-center study investigating rituximab in AAV patients.
– In an international collaboration, Dr. Teng is involved in pregnancy-related studies to develop therapy for preeclampsia.
In the area of immunomonitoring, Dr. Teng’s research is focused at:
– developing methods to quantify neutrophil extracellular traps to monitor this potential autoantigenic load in patients in SLE and AAV patients
– developing a high-sensitivity flowcytometry technique ‘at the bedside’ to monitor immunological effects of treatment in SLE and AAV patients
– develop methods to identify auto-antigen specific humoral immunity.
Dr. Teng’s work is supported by grants from the Dutch Kidney Foundation and the Netherlands Organistion for Scientific Research.
