# Jannie Borst
**Jannie Borst** (full name Jannetje Geertruida Borst, born 1957) is a Dutch immunologist who has spent her career studying T cells, the white blood cells that kill infected and cancerous cells. She is known for early work on the molecular composition of the [T-cell receptor](https://www.edgepedia.org/t-cell-receptor) complex and for a long-running research program on how T-cell responses are regulated by costimulatory and coinhibitory signals, with direct relevance to cancer immunotherapy.[1](https://www.nki.nl/employees/former-faculty-members/jannie-borst-former-faculty-member/) • [2](https://immunology.lumc.nl/education/team/jannie-borst-284)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Field | Cellular and molecular immunology; T-cell responses, costimulation, and coinhibition, immune oncology[3](https://www.ae-info.org/ae/Member/Borst_Jannie) |
| Born | 1957, the Netherlands[4](https://albumacademicum.uva.nl/en/id/id002246) |
| PhD | Leiden University, 1985, on the T3/T-cell receptor complex; doctoral work at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute under Cox P. Terhorst[5](https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/staffmembers/jannie-keyser-borst) |
| NKI career | Research fellow 1983–1987; group leader 1987–2019; head of the Division of Immunology 2002–2019[3](https://www.ae-info.org/ae/Member/Borst_Jannie) |
| Professorships | Experimental Oncology, University of Amsterdam, 1999–2019; Immunology, Leiden University, from 2019; emerita since 2025[3](https://www.ae-info.org/ae/Member/Borst_Jannie) • [6](https://immunology.lumc.nl/our-emeriti-professors-81) |
| Signature work | 1987 *Nature* paper identifying a T-cell receptor γ/CD3 complex on cloned functional lymphocytes[7](https://europepmc.org/article/MED/3102966) |
| Honors | Van Loghem career award (2009); EMBO member (2012); Academia Europaea (2019); Oncode Institute member (2019)[3](https://www.ae-info.org/ae/Member/Borst_Jannie) |
## Education and early career
Borst obtained a [Master's degree](https://www.edgepedia.org/masters-degree) in Biology with Chemistry at [Leiden University](https://www.edgepedia.org/leiden-university) in 1980.[2](https://immunology.lumc.nl/education/team/jannie-borst-284) She then did the major part of her doctoral work at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, in Boston, under the supervision of Cox P. Terhorst.[5](https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/staffmembers/jannie-keyser-borst) She received her PhD from Leiden University in 1985, with [Jon J. van Rood](https://www.edgepedia.org/j-j-van-rood) as promotor, on a thesis titled "The T3/T cell receptor complex: protein composition and functional properties".[5](https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/staffmembers/jannie-keyser-borst)
In 1987 she started her independent career as a research group leader at the Netherlands Cancer Institute (NKI) in Amsterdam, supported by a five-year personal Huygens fellowship from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research.[2](https://immunology.lumc.nl/education/team/jannie-borst-284)
## Career record
Borst obtained a staff scientist position at the NKI-AVL in 1992, and from 2002 to 2019 she headed the institute's Division of Immunology.[2](https://immunology.lumc.nl/education/team/jannie-borst-284) From 1999 to 2019 she was simultaneously full professor of Experimental Oncology at the [University of Amsterdam](https://www.edgepedia.org/university-of-amsterdam), where she also coordinated the Biomedical Master track Oncology.[3](https://www.ae-info.org/ae/Member/Borst_Jannie) • [2](https://immunology.lumc.nl/education/team/jannie-borst-284)
In January 2019 she moved to Leiden, becoming professor of [Immunology](https://www.edgepedia.org/immunology) at Leiden University's Faculty of Medicine and head of the Department of Immunology at [Leiden University Medical Center](https://www.edgepedia.org/leiden-university-medical-center) (LUMC); the Academia Europaea record names the department she took over as [Immunohematology](https://www.edgepedia.org/immunohematology) and Blood Transfusion.[3](https://www.ae-info.org/ae/Member/Borst_Jannie) • [8](https://www.ae-info.org/ae/User/Borst_Jannie/CV) She worked at the NKI until June 2019, after which she and her research group continued their research at the LUMC.[1](https://www.nki.nl/employees/former-faculty-members/jannie-borst-former-faculty-member/) The LUMC records her employment there as 2019 to 2025, and she is now listed among the department's emeriti professors.[6](https://immunology.lumc.nl/our-emeriti-professors-81)
## Representative work
Her 1987 *Nature* paper, published on 1 February 1987 (volume 325, pages 683–688), showed that cloned blood lymphocytes which do not express the alpha- and beta-chains of the T-cell receptor nevertheless carry the gamma protein, disulphide-linked either to another molecule or to itself and associated with the CD3 complex, and that these cells display MHC-unrestricted cytotoxicity.[7](https://europepmc.org/article/MED/3102966) The paper proposed that these observations may help to solve the mystery posed by the discovery of the gamma gene.[7](https://europepmc.org/article/MED/3102966)
## Contributions to T-cell immunology
Borst has devoted her career to studying T cells, and her group studies the proteins that tell T cells to become fully operational.[1](https://www.nki.nl/employees/former-faculty-members/jannie-borst-former-faculty-member/) Her stated fields of scholarship are the molecular basis of the [T cell](https://www.edgepedia.org/t-cell) response, signal transduction, T cell costimulation and coinhibition, cell death, and immune oncology.[3](https://www.ae-info.org/ae/Member/Borst_Jannie) A central theme is CD4+ T cell help for cytotoxic T cells. Her 2017 *Immunity* paper showed that help during priming optimizes cytotoxic T cells by downregulating PD-1 and other coinhibitory receptors that impede CTL activity, by increasing motility and migration capacities, and by upregulating the cytotoxic effector molecules TNF, FASL, GZMB, and IFN-γ at the mRNA and protein level; a very large part of this help program was instilled via CD27 costimulation.[9](https://www.cell.com/immunity/fulltext/S1074-7613(17)30463-6) She was corresponding author of a 2018 *Nature Reviews Immunology* review, "CD4+ T cell help in cancer immunology and immunotherapy", published on 29 July 2018.[10](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30057419/)
In collaboration with Aduro Biotech Europe she helped develop a new immunotherapeutic drug against cancer that is in clinical testing.[8](https://www.ae-info.org/ae/User/Borst_Jannie/CV)
## Honors and society memberships
The Dutch Society for Immunology (NVVI) confers the Van Loghem career award on senior immunologists; Borst received it in 2009.[3](https://www.ae-info.org/ae/Member/Borst_Jannie) • [11](https://nvvi-dsi.nl/index.php/en/nvvi-awards/van-loghem-laureates) She was elected to EMBO in 2012 and to the Academia Europaea in 2019, as an ordinary member in the Cell & Developmental Biology section with the Netherlands as her main country of residence.[3](https://www.ae-info.org/ae/Member/Borst_Jannie) She became a member of the Oncode Institute, the Dutch institute that funds basic cancer research groups, in 2019.[3](https://www.ae-info.org/ae/Member/Borst_Jannie) Early in her career she held a five-year personal Huygens fellowship from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research.[2](https://immunology.lumc.nl/education/team/jannie-borst-284)
## Recent developments
Her LUMC laboratory has remained active in T regulatory cell (Treg) biology. In 2024 it published a *Cell Reports* paper (Cell Rep. 43(9):114681, 24 September 2024) showing that immune suppression by human thymus-derived effector Tregs relies on glucose/lactate-fueled fatty acid synthesis, a *JCI Insight* paper (9: e172942) showing that human blood Treg cells differentiate into non-lymphoid tissue-resident effector cells upon TNFR2 costimulation, and a *Journal of Clinical Investigation* paper (134: e171154) showing that PD-1 or CTLA-4 blockade promotes CD86-driven Treg responses upon radiotherapy of lymphocyte-depleted cancer in mice.[2](https://immunology.lumc.nl/education/team/jannie-borst-284) A September 2025 preprint from the Department of Immunology at the LUMC, with Borst as senior co-author and later published in *Cell Reports* (doi 10.1016/j.celrep.2026.117296), showed that Th1 and T follicular helper cells originate from the same bipotent precursor clones co-expressing T-bet, BCL6, CXCR3, and CXCR5, with Th1 differentiation relying on CD40 costimulation and cDC1s and Tfh differentiation on ICOS costimulation and B cells; the work was funded by the Dutch Cancer Society (KWF grants 11079 and 10894) and the Oncode Institute.[12](https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.08.674857v1)
## References
1. [Jannie Borst | Former faculty member | Netherlands Cancer Institute](https://www.nki.nl/employees/former-faculty-members/jannie-borst-former-faculty-member/)
2. [Prof. Dr. Jannie Borst - LUMC Immunology](https://immunology.lumc.nl/education/team/jannie-borst-284)
3. [Academy of Europe: Borst Jannie](https://www.ae-info.org/ae/Member/Borst_Jannie)
4. [Album Academicum | J.G. Borst](https://albumacademicum.uva.nl/en/id/id002246)
5. [Jannie Keyser-Borst - Leiden University](https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/staffmembers/jannie-keyser-borst)
6. [Our emeriti professors - Immunology, LUMC](https://immunology.lumc.nl/our-emeriti-professors-81)
7. [A T-cell receptor gamma/CD3 complex found on cloned functional lymphocytes (Nature, 1987)](https://europepmc.org/article/MED/3102966)
8. [Jannie Borst - Biography (Academia Europaea CV)](https://www.ae-info.org/ae/User/Borst_Jannie/CV)
9. https://www.cell.com/immunity/fulltext/S1074-7613(17)30463-6
10. [CD4+ T cell help in cancer immunology and immunotherapy (Nature Reviews Immunology, 2018)](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30057419/)
11. [Van Loghem laureates (Dutch Society for Immunology)](https://nvvi-dsi.nl/index.php/en/nvvi-awards/van-loghem-laureates)
12. [Requirements for development of T-helper 1 and T-follicular helper cells from a common precursor (bioRxiv, 2025)](https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.08.674857v1)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Life and health › Life and health scientists › Life scientists › Researchers in immunology, microbiology, and virology › Innate and adaptive immunology › Adaptive immunity researchers › T cell biology researchers*
*Initially written Sep 21, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 25, 2026; Sep 30, 2026 · Edited: Sep 25, 2026; Sep 30, 2026; Oct 15, 2026 · Last review: Sep 30, 2026*
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License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license