Twan Lammers, Professor of Medicine, RWTH Aachen

Portrait of Twan Lammers, Professor of Medicine at RWTH Aachen University, featured in NanoSphere interview on nanomedicine and drug delivery innovation

Twan Lammers, Professor of Medicine, RWTH Aachen

Biography

Twan Lammers obtained a D.Sc. in Radiation Oncology from Heidelberg University in 2008 and a Ph.D. in Pharmaceutics from Utrecht University in 2009. In the same year, he started the Nanomedicine and Theranostics group at the Institute for Experimental Molecular Imaging (ExMI) at RWTH Aachen University Clinic. In 2014, he was promoted to full professor of medicine. His group aims to individualize and improve disease treatment by combining drug targeting with imaging. To this end, image-guided (theranostic) drug delivery systems are being developed, as well as materials and methods to monitor tumor growth, angiogenesis, inflammation, fibrosis and metastasis. He has published over 250 papers, and received multiple scholarships and awards, including a starting and consolidator grant from the European Research Council, the Young Investigator Award of the Controlled Release Society (2015), the Adritelf International Award (2015) and the Belgian Society for Pharmaceutical Science International Award (2020). He is on the editorial board of 10 journals, and serves as a handling editor for the Journal of Controlled Release, Drug Delivery and Translational Research, and Molecular Imaging and Biology. Since 2019, he is included in the Clarivate Analytics list of Highly Cited Researchers.

Interview

At NanoSphere, we had the privilege to sit down with Professor Twan Lammers, Professor of Medicine at RWTH Aachen University, whose pioneering work has shaped the field of cancer nanomedicine and drug delivery systems. In this exclusive interview, he shares his perspective on the biggest challenges in clinical translation, the opportunities for bridging academic research and industry, and his vision for how nanotechnology can transform future oncology treatments. His insights provide valuable guidance for scientists, clinicians, and innovators working to accelerate the journey of nanomedicine from bench to bedside.

NanoSphere: Tell us a bit about yourself—your background, journey, and what led you to where you are today.

Twan: I completed high school in the Netherlands and was a reasonably strong student, following the top educational track there. At university, I considered medicine, physics, or chemistry, and ultimately decided on pharmacy because it seemed a balanced mix of those fields. I studied pharmaceutical sciences at Utrecht University. During a pharmacology course taught by Professor Berend Olivier, the topic of neurotransmitters and their effects on mental well-being came up, along with opportunities to go to the United States—either Yale or Cornell. I hadn’t seriously considered it until his seminar. Inspired, I approached him afterwards to ask about the possible next steps. He shared some websites and contacts, and that very evening I reached out to a professor in New York—who responded with enthusiasm.

Within a day, my life changed. I realized I loved scientific research. I was then invited to spend nine months at Cornell Medical Center in Manhattan, where I benefitted from excellent interactions at Memorial Sloan‑Kettering Cancer Center and Rockefeller University—clusters of top research institutions. The experience was enriching, though I still considered pivoting to an MBA and learning Spanish. But both my New York and Utrecht supervisors encouraged me to continue pursuing science and offered job opportunities.

I decided that I wanted my next move to be outside the Netherlands, but still in Europe. I looked into Leuven, Cambridge, and Heidelberg. At Utrecht University’s Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, a ten‑year anniversary event was organized by Daan Crommelin, who invited Francis Szoka—a renowned U.S. liposome scientist who developed liposomal amphotericin. He spoke about what he called the “magic bus”—a drug delivery system that transports cargo through the body and delivers it precisely where needed. I had never considered drug delivery before—this talk opened my eyes.

I contacted Heidelberg and within a week was invited to join a group at the German Cancer Center. There, I had a somewhat unique doctoral set‑up: my mentor was a prominent radiation oncologist, he was very busy, which gave me the freedom to explore my own research ideas. The project was funded by the German–Israel Collaboration Program. Ultimately, this allowed me to pursue two doctoral degrees: one in medicine, focusing on a protein phosphatase's role in radiation and chemosensitivity; and another in drug delivery.

I defended these at Heidelberg and Utrecht University, respectively, with Gert Storm and Wim Hennink as thesis supervisors for the pharmaceutical doctorate. This collaboration and a large EU-FP6 project termed MediTrans, which was coordinated by Gert Storm, helped me start building a European research network.

This big European project involved 30 academic and industry partners. Through it, I learned many important things, like if and when to patent, how to co‑supervise PhD students, and also administrative and leadership skills.

Moreover, in 2009, just before I finished my pharmaceutical doctorate, Fabian Kiessling moved from Heidelberg to Aachen, to start a new institute at RWTH Aachen University Clinic and the Helmholtz Center for Biomedical Engineering. He asked me to join and generously offered me to lead a small group, splitting my time 50-50-ish between Utrecht, Heidelberg and Aachen.

In terms of career, I never plan meticulously—my strength probably is staying on a semi-loose track, and working on questions and medical problems I enjoy, with people I enjoy working with.

NanoSphere: Could you share your thoughts on clinical cancer nanomedicines and the main barriers to their translation? How can we better connect academia and industry so that academic work reaches clinical settings?

Twan: We published a paper in 2019 called “Smart cancer nanomedicine” in Nature Nanotechnology. In it, we outlined practical trajectories to help cancer nanomedicine translate more efficiently into clinical practice. In a follow-up perspective with Josbert M. Metselaar titled “Challenges in nanomedicine clinical translation” (Drug Delivery and Translational Research, 2020), we deliberately flipped the usual academic mindset. Instead of starting “bottom-up” with the particle, we argued to work “top-down” from clinical need, end-user requirements, and market readiness.

A common academic reflex is to obsess over size distributions (e.g., 95–105 nm vs. 80–120 nm). Clinically, that’s rarely decisive. Take Abraxane (nab-paclitaxel): it’s ~125 nm at reconstitution, but in blood it rapidly dissociates. The key clinical wins weren’t “perfect size” or long circulation; they were higher paclitaxel administration within a shorter infusion time window, and also no need for corticosteroid and/or antihistaminic comedication. Those advantages drove adoption.

What matters is robust, reproducible formulation and aligning with real clinical needs. Start with: What do oncologists/radiologists actually want? Often it’s a better signal-to-noise image or lower contrast dose, not necessarily a complex “fancy” construct. “Smart” should mean simple to make, simple to use, and compatible with clinical workflows—not ten components plus a laser. Biomarker-guided patient selection is essential. Oncology learned this with trastuzumab: broad, unstratified use underperformed; restricting to HER2-positive patients using a companion diagnostic (HercepTest) transformed outcomes and the field. Nanomedicine must follow suit: define who benefits and why—early—otherwise broad, all-comers trials will lose to stratified competitors.

I don’t think everything simply follows “hype cycles.” But many technologies do. I still remember during my doctoral work in Heidelberg: leading immunotherapy researchers would present exciting data at conferences and then conclude with, “but let’s be honest, this will never work clinically.” And look where immunotherapy is today. It was the same with mRNA: in the early 2000s, people who eventually worked at BioNTech and CureVac already understood the potential of mRNA vaccines, but there was very little clinical or commercial interest. Fast forward, and we’ve all seen how that story played out. History in this field tends to repeat itself and remind us to keep perspective.

A couple of years ago, I also wrote a commentary titled “Macro-nanomedicine: Targeting the big picture.” The point was that if you zoom out and address the real hurdles—clinical decision-making, regulatory fit, patient selection, integration with existing therapies—then the bottleneck typically isn’t whether the liposome or micelle that is being used is good enough. It is whether we are employing the right drug, in the right disease indication, in the right clinical setting, and ideally vs. the right clinical competitor, and with the right biomarker.

To conclude, look at the bigger holistic picture: combine good (not over-engineered) nanocarriers with the right drugs, the right regimens (e.g., with radio- or immunotherapy), and the right patients. That’s where the biggest translational wins will continue to come from.

NanoSphere: As a past president of the Controlled Release Society and a council member of the European Society for Molecular Imaging, how have these leadership roles influenced your perspective on the future directions of nanomedicine?

Twan: For me, professional societies have been crucial. I always tell younger colleagues that networking is a crucial part of their professional growth, and that they should get involved with societies early on. Most major organizations have local chapters that don’t require international travel, and they’re a great way to share your ideas, ask questions, and see what others in the field are working on.

In my own case, I was very active in the Controlled Release Society (CRS), which covers all aspects of drug delivery, not just cancer or nanomedicine. I also worked with the European Society for Molecular Imaging (ESMI), which is more focused on imaging. These two are complementary: drug delivery and imaging go hand in hand. For the past few years, we’ve even organized joint sessions — “CRS meets ESMI” — so drug delivery people learn about state-of-the-art imaging, and imaging people learn about the challenges of drug delivery. Those exchanges are enriching and generate new ideas.

Societies do more than provide a stage. They propel careers: poster prizes, travel grants, young investigator awards — these lines on a CV can make a big difference in early stages, whether you aim for academia or industry. Increasingly, CRS in particular has been creating bridges between academia and industry through dedicated networking events and “Young Scientist–Industry” sessions. There’s also a strong community element. At CRS, we have the Young Scientist Committee, which organizes workshops (often free, online) on things like how to write a good CV or how to navigate career choices. ESMI and related societies (for instance, the European Society for Biomaterials) have similar initiatives. These are invaluable: you can sit in a session with three senior industry leaders and ask them candid questions about why they made certain decisions — and get honest answers.

And then there’s recognition. At CRS, we introduced a “Member of the Year” award, which often goes to people who work tirelessly in the background — not the big-name professors, but those who keep things running. Recognition like this builds a sense of family and belonging. I still remember in Philadelphia when colleagues like Samir Mitragotri and Avi Schroeder mentioned how unique the atmosphere at CRS felt compared to other societies. Ultimately, societies give you chances to meet people informally — at poster sessions, coffee breaks, evening events. Some of my closest academic friends today are people I first bumped into randomly at a conference poster. One conversation led to another, and suddenly you know each other better than colleagues back home. That’s the real value: the doors societies open, the collaborations they spark, and the sense of community they create.

NanoSphere: If there’s one key message or insight you’d like to share with readers about the future of nanomedicine, what would it be?

Twan: For me, the key message is simple: nanomedicine is about medicine. I use technology at the nano- and microscales to better understand and treat disease — whether through diagnosis, treatment, or treatment monitoring. But I always try to keep the medical component front and center. I’ll never be the person who makes the fanciest, most complex nanoparticle — partly because I don’t have the chemistry skills, but also because it doesn’t drive me. What motivates me is understanding the key limiting factors in medicine: What prevents better diagnosis? What holds back treatment in high-medical-need diseases? And what is the simplest possible solution that can overcome those barriers? For example, we published a study showing that simply putting mice on intermittent fasting for three weeks changed their tumor microenvironment so dramatically that liposome accumulation in tumors increased far more than what any nanoparticle design tweak could achieve. Sometimes, the “low-tech” interventions can have more impact than another layer of nanopharmaceutical complexity.

I once wrote a piece called “Smart drug delivery: Back to the future vs. clinical reality”. My point was that parts of nanomedicine are drifting into science fiction, and into “fiction science” — i.e. making nanoparticles for the sake of making them, without any realistic clinical perspective. In the abstract, I stated that what many people in the field consider “smart” is actually more like “art.” Controllably crafting a nanoparticle with six different components and multiple different imaging agents is impressive from a materials science point of view, but it is medically largely useless.

Clinically, complexity is a barrier, not a virtue. Look at the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines. They succeeded because they were relatively simple and scalable: three or four lipid components plus mRNA, enabled by decades of work on mRNA modifications (Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman), the design of ionizable lipids, and microfluidic production technologies that could churn out liters per minute. When the medical need was there, translation was lightning-fast. But it worked because the technology was streamlined and the biology well understood.

So my future outlook is this: nanomedicine will thrive where it stays close to clinical reality. If we focus on solving real bottlenecks, keep formulations as simple as possible, and align with true medical need, we can deliver transformative impact.

Twan`s references

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Twan Lammers, Professor of Medicine, RWTH Aachen

Biography

Interview

Twan`s references

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