Title Promoter Affiliations Abstract "Counterfactuals in the History of Greek: An Enriched Diachronic Typology using a Context-Sensitive Evolutionary Model." "Klaas Bentein" "Department of Linguistics" "This project analyses counterfactual constructions in the history of Ancient Greek (from 750BCE to 100CE). These counterfactuals are largely unstudied and more diverse in types than analysed before in linguistics. Previous research has yielded premature generalizations on the nature and evolution of counterfactuals. Therefore I will develop a quantifiable context-sensitive evolutionary model to provide an enriched diachronic typology of counterfactuals" "A functional-evolutionary perspective on persistent pain" "Diana Torta" "Health Psychology" "What causes, in some individuals, the transition from acute to chronic pain? This research project will test a model of persistent pain under a functional-evolutionary perspective, which integrates neuroscientific and psychological elements. The idea is that persistent pain emerges from a dynamic interplay among individual characteristics, threatening environments, and competing relevant goals. My research proposal has three objectives, which will be investigated in dedicated work packages. First, it will define how individual differences in learning style relate to different behaviours in persistent pain. Second, it will characterize how and through which mechanisms supportive/unsupportive social environments modulate the development persistent pain, and why and when individuals stick to falsified negative beliefs. Third, it will explain how competing goals shape pain persistency." "Methylation and Internalizing Problem Behaviors in Adolescence: Examining Associations Across Multilpe Levels of Analysis" "Luc Goossens" "Parenting and Special Education, School Psychology and Development in Context, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Kulak Kortrijk Campus, Clinical Psychology, Mind-body Research" "The project attempts to draw a comprehensive picture of the role of DNA methylation in the emergence of two types of internalizing problems in adolescence (i.e., depressive symptoms and loneliness). A three-year longitudinal study, conducted on a large sample (N = 1,000), will examine prospective effects of methylation in a number of genes related to the stress response system on the development of these internalizing problems, correlated change between methylation and  internalizing problems, and methylation stability across time. DNA methylation will further be linked to internalizing problems through two intermediate levels of risk factors, that is, stress reactivity and biases in emotional information processing. Links between methylation and the quality of the parent-adolescent context will also be examined. The project will significantly advance current understanding of gene-environment interplay in the key formative period of a dolescence." "Preventing therapy-induced cancer stemness" "Chris Marine" "Laboratory for Molecular Cancer Biology (VIB-KU Leuven), Laboratory for RNA Cancer Biology, Laboratory of Experimental Oncology, Translational Cell & Tissue Research" "The inability to eradicate metastasis, the major source of cancer-related deaths, is one of the most important challenges faced by modern oncologists. Cancer therapeutics used to treat advanced metastatic diseases are incapable of killing all cancer cells, leaving behind a reservoir of surviving cells, known as the minimal residual disease (MRD), from which relapse -almost invariably- emerges. Incompleteness of any tumoricidal treatment is commonly explained by the (pre)-existence of cells harboring drug resistant-conferring mutation(s), owing to high genetic intra-tumor heterogeneity. There is, however, increasing evidence that the surviving cells are not just static bystanders. Dynamic nongenetic reprogramming allows active adaptation to the treatment (stress). Our recent work has shown that (i) residual cancer cells can induce robust protective responses and acquire diverse drug-resilient features, including cancer stem cell properties, and highlighted (ii) the major contribution of therapy-induced stemness in tumor recurrence. We propose to develop therapeutic strategies that contend with and capitalize on nongenetic tumor evolution with the ultimate goal to prevent resistance to anticancer drugs. We will (i) dissect the molecular principles that govern drug-induced reprogramming into the stem-like state; (ii) devise strategies that target (common) drivers (i.e. chromatin remodelers, lncRNAs/eRNAs) of therapy-induced stemness and (iii) test their efficacy in preventing relapse in the context of rationally designed MRD-directed combination therapies. This proposal may lead to a paradigm shift in the treatment of advanced cancers and long-lasting clinical benefits for a considerable number of patients."