Damya Laoui graduated in Bio-Engineering Sciences and obtained a PhD degree at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB, Belgium) in 2014. After a post-doc in at the ISREC Institute in the Ecole Polytechnique de Lausanne, she came back to Brussels and started leading her own team focusing on tumor-immunology. 

She is exploring the role of immune cells (mainly macrophages and dendritic cells) in tumor progression and is developing new personalized (combinational)immunotherapies based on dendritic cells to win the battle against cancer. For her work on tumor-derived dendritic cells, she received the MIT Innovator under 35 Europe Award 2017, the New Scientist Award 2018 and the Collen-Francqui startup-chair in 2020. Besides her research activities, she is encouraging young women to start and pursue studies and careers in STEM.