Ton N. Schumacher is Principal Investigator at The Netherlands Cancer Institute and Oncode Institute, and Professor of Immunotechnology at Leiden University. Research of his lab focuses on the development of novel technologies with which T cell responses can be measured or manipulated, and the subsequent use of these technologies to understand how T cells can recognize and destroy human cancer. 

Work over the past years has described the role of the cancer neoantigens that are formed as a consequence of DNA damage in human cancer immunotherapy and provide the first evidence for the superior activity of the, now widely explored, concept of neoadjuvant immune checkpoint blockade. 

Schumacher is recipient of, amongst others, the Queen Wilhelmina Cancer Research Award, Meyenburg Cancer Research Award, William B. Coley Award, and Louis Jeantet Prize for Medicine, and Fellow of the AACR and Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. Schumacher is founder of a number of biotechs that focus on the development of novel cancer immunotherapeutics and is venture partner at Third Rock Ventures.